by Frank Tayell
“Mine?”
“And Nilda’s, for making a home in an ancient castle, surrounding yourselves with all those outmoded trappings of chivalry. Heroism seems to have rubbed off, particularly on the young. The children now demand it of the adults. Mr Tull shares some of the blame. Him and his mantra of being the help that comes to others. It is an odd twist on such an antique scripture, but because it is such an ancient notion, the idea has permeated every culture. Considering the evil we have all witnessed, we all wish to be the best we can be, and so we are all grateful that one great danger is now gone. There are the professor’s people in the Pyrenees, of course, but the idea of sailing down to the Bay of Biscay seems like a holiday compared to the weather here. No, that is why the mood is so upbeat, because those people are dead.”
“You’ve a grim view of people.”
“No more so than you. Tell me I’m wrong. I don’t say people will admit it openly. I doubt many would admit it to themselves, but everyone aboard has had that thought, even if it was instantly banished, replaced by shame and guilt. Regardless, they were in a good mood last night, and most will be in a moderately good mood today, until it comes time to scrub down the corridors. For such small humans, those children were considerably sick.”
“Not just the kids,” Chester said.
“And for that reason, I hope you don’t mind if I join you today.”
“Join me?”
“The collective you,” she said. “I understand you want to investigate a water tower?”
“I’m not sure we’ll need to, what with all this rain.”
“It could be weeks before we leave here,” Locke said. “Finding an alternate water source is prudent. But I would like an opportunity to go ashore.”
“I’d have thought Leon and Bran would have welcomed your company.”
“Not mine,” Locke said. “I asked. I was turned down. Politely, but firmly.”
“Because of your past?”
“Perhaps I was not as diplomatic as I could have been. However, aboard this ship, I find myself surrounded by ghosts, and forget that they are unknown to the living. I feel like a stranger in my own home.”
Chester was still only half awake, but he could sense what she was saying. “People aren’t being friendly?”
“They’re not hostile, but they’re not trusting. I, alone, am an outsider. There is irony there, of course, but it is… it is difficult, Chester. I should have been aboard this ship with Lisa, Tamika, Loretta, and so many others. If the present had turned out as we once feared, we’d be fretting about Quigley in his bunker, about the fragmented global militaries who’d have turned piratical warlords. The dangers would, I suspect, have been greater, but I would be surrounded by friends. More than friends. We were family. We had what you have now, but we had it before the outbreak.”
“Tamika was the captain of this ship?” Chester asked.
“She was. And found dead aboard by Bill and Kim. I don’t know what happened to Lisa. Loretta was Tamika’s sister, and our agent in the FBI. Hers is an interesting story, but one for another day, perhaps. You don’t mind if I come with you, today?”
“Of course not. Though we’ll be doing little more than rummaging around a few ruins for tea and coffee.”
“And perhaps some champagne,” Locke said. “To celebrate your engagement.”
“I’d settle for a cuppa,” Chester said.
“We shall see what we shall find,” Locke said. “And it is getting light, so perhaps we should leave before we get a bucket and mop thrust into our hands.”
Chapter 22 - Spotters Above
Nieuwpoort, Belgium
Chester peered around the doorway of the opticians he and Nilda had entered five minutes before, took one glance at the street outside, then ducked back into cover. He could almost hear his brain buzz as he furiously tried to remember what little sign language he’d ever learned, gave up, and settled for raising three fingers.
“Three zombies?” Nilda signed back.
Chester nodded.
“Jay?” Nilda signed.
Chester shook his head, then eased aside so Nilda could see for herself.
The three mud-coated creatures were heading to the doorway on the other side of the street. That doorway led to a stairwell, and then to apartments above the ground-level restaurants. While he and Nilda had popped into the opticians, it was to the apartments that Jay, Tuck, and Locke had gone, and into which the zombies were drifting.
It was too late to regret they’d split up and not left a guard on the road. Too late to wish he’d not left his old glasses on the opticians’ counter next to the three new pairs he’d been deciding between. And it was too late to learn enough sign language to properly communicate his plan to Nilda.
He pointed at himself and raised his mace.
Nilda nodded.
Chester stepped outside. Without the glasses, the zombies were shapes rather than figures, all with their backs to him as they staggered towards the apartment doorway. He could make out their arms, and counted only five of them. The nearest zombie was armless and shirtless, and two steps later, he realised it was nearly skinless. The result of an explosion, he guessed. From the lack of mud on exposed bone, one that had occurred recently. His boot splashed in the growing puddle by the silt-blocked gutter. Almost as one, the zombies turned around.
The front of the nearest zombie was no better than its back. Barely clothed, barely moving, barely humanoid. It had holes were its ears should be, another where its left eye was gone, a void that had once been a nose, but a mouth that snapped up and down as its remaining arm clawed out towards him.
The other two zombies were less obviously damaged, yet both moved more slowly. He heard another splash behind him, spun, and saw Nilda had followed him out of the shop.
“I thought you were going to stay back,” he said accusingly.
“Eyes front!” Nilda hissed, raising her sword.
Chester turned back to the undead as they staggered across the road. He swung his mace up, hacking it down diagonally, slamming the heavy metal into the zombie’s shoulder. Bone crumpled as the octagon of steel tore through the creature’s remaining muscle. It staggered sideways, but didn’t fall.
Chester hauled his arm back, punching the mace into its ruined face. This blow knocked the creature onto its back. It twitched, rolled to the left, then the right, splashing water as it thrashed in the gutter. It would be seconds before it stood, and that gave Chester time, but he didn’t need it. Of the remaining two zombies, one was down. Nilda pivoted towards the last, ducking under its flailing arms, slicing her sword at the back of its knees. With its tendons severed, the zombie toppled while Nilda straightened, turned, braced her left hand on the sword’s hilt, and plunged it down into the zombie’s skull.
Chester turned back to the creature he’d downed, but it was still rolling between the puddles. He raised the mace, and finished the creature with one heavy blow.
“I thought I was dealing with them,” he said.
“Did you?” Nilda asked, peering up and down the street. “I think we’re okay. Just the three of them.”
“I don’t know if,” he began. “I mean, should you—”
“Don’t start any of that,” she said. “I’m not made of glass. I’m not sick. I’m—” But before she could finish, Tuck came through the doorway, submachine gun raised to her shoulder. Slowly, the soldier lowered the weapon.
“Three of them,” Nilda signed. “Only three,” she added aloud. “Chester, you better get your new glasses.”
Chester nodded, and said no more. He knew his fears were more about the future than the present, but if there was a time and a place to discuss them, it wasn’t here.
He went back into the shop, and put on the glasses with the tortoise-shell rims. They were the closest to the prescription he needed. He pocketed the others, including the children’s pair, and returned outside.
“I don’t think we should let the kids ashore,”
Jay said as he took out the phone, and photographed the two zombies his mother had killed. He paused by the skinless zombie Chester had downed. “I won’t take a picture of that one. No one would recognise him.”
“Kim said there was a play park near the bank of the river where she went yesterday to gather water,” Nilda said. “We can take the kids there, but only after the rain stops, otherwise we’ll need another new set of clothes for them all.”
“To a play park?” Jay asked.
“They are children, Jay,” Nilda said. “And it’ll have a fence, a gate, it’ll keep them contained so we’ll not need so large a guard. What did you find inside?”
“They’re holiday apartments,” Locke said. “Some soaps and toiletries, no clothes. Enough tea and coffee for breakfast, as long as we stick to one cup each.”
“There were sheets on the bed?” Nilda asked. “Maybe we should look for a sewing machine.”
“Why?” Jay asked.
“To make clothes,” Nilda said.
“Of the items one is likely to find in a holiday home, a sewing machine is not high on the list,” Locke said. “But I imagine there is one in every other home on Faroe.”
“Hmm, true,” Nilda said distractedly.
“How long does it take to find out if a power plant hasn’t been destroyed?” Jay asked.
“A few hours more,” Nilda said. “Fine. Yes. It’s about ten. Bran and Leon should be back at the ship around one.” She glanced north, back towards the distant harbour, now hidden by apartments and flooded roads. “I don’t think we’ll find any great cache of supplies anywhere in Nieuwpoort, but we’ll keep looking on our way to that water tower. If we don’t find anything else, we’ll gather all the adults. One shopping cart each, and we’ll come along these streets grabbing everything we think would be vaguely useful. Maybe more glasses? Should we carry a stock of those aboard, or is that a waste of weight? There’ll be an opticians in every town on either side of the Atlantic. I tell you what, we’ll grab what we can, and we can sort it at the dockside. I don’t know how we’ll fairly distribute it, but we can figure that out later.”
“That would be for the best,” Locke said. “People will then have a chance to pocket something for themselves.”
“They shouldn’t do that,” Jay said.
“Yet they will,” Locke said. “Human nature can’t be fought, but it can be moulded into a useful weapon. You, yourself, are a case in point.”
“What d’you mean?” Jay asked.
“You took those books from upstairs.”
“For George,” Jay said. “They’re history books. And they’re in English. He likes history.”
“For yourself, or for an other, they were not taken for the collective good,” Locke said.
“And there’s a discussion to be held by firelight,” Nilda said. “But my real worry is, if the news from Faroe is bad, what effect that’ll have on morale. It’ll mean more waiting, more uncertainty, so better we keep doing something than sit around.”
“Agreed,” Locke said.
“This way,” Tuck signed. And took the lead.
“I really should learn sign language,” Locke said. “What a thoroughly useful skill. Teach some to me.”
“Now?” Jay asked.
“The best time to have learned anything is yesterday,” Locke said. “But now is better than never. How would I express that in sign?”
“Um… maybe we should start with the basics, like left, right, zombie, that kind of thing.”
“You’re the teacher,” Locke said.
Nilda and Chester fell in at the rear.
“Before you say anything, think,” Nilda said. “I appreciate your concern, but I have enough of my own.”
“Fair enough,” Chester said. “I do have one question.”
“Fine, but one and only one,” Nilda said.
“It’s this,” he said. “How come you weren’t happy with me wearing glasses with a cat on the arms, but you’re okay with tortoises?”
A small bark of laughter escaped her lips. Ahead, Jay turned around. Nilda waved him on. “Sorry, what?” she said.
“I don’t think it’s funny,” Chester said. “I liked my cat glasses. How come tortoises are fine, but cats aren’t?”
“Because it’s tortoiseshell, not a little tortoise.”
“Same difference,” Chester said. “It’s a double standard, that’s what I’m saying. Like how you can wear a shirt with a crocodile on it, or one with a bloke on horseback swinging a hammer, but not a shirt with a dragon.”
“Where did you see a shirt with a dragon?” she asked, glancing at the broken windows on either side of them.
“My point is more one of general complaint at the snobbery associated with certain animals,” Chester said. “We’re creating a new world, right? We’ve consigned quite a few of the worst ideas to the wheelie-bin of history, so why not that?”
“A very good question,” Nilda said. “And a far better one for a firelight discussion then the relative merits of selective looting.”
Ahead, Tuck paused by a shop window. She signed something not even Jay knew. Tuck signed again, more slowly.
“She’s asking if you want a sauce boat,” Jay said. “For a present list.”
“You mean is a gravy boat on our wedding list?” Nilda said. “What do you think, Chester?”
The shop had sold crockery. The window display was nearly intact. The door had been broken open, and the shelves immediately behind it had collapsed, but the crockery deeper inside was still in one piece.
“I wouldn’t mind some gravy,” Chester said. “I’m not too fussed what it comes inside of.”
“One intact shop, we might find more ahead,” Tuck signed.
“Wait a second,” Nilda said. She stepped over the threshold, broken crockery crunching beneath her feet. “Coastal blue,” she said, bending down to pick up a large casserole dish. “I always wanted one of these. More importantly, I don’t fancy spending another evening scrubbing out the saucepans in that galley. We’ll need about five per meal, so let’s see how many there are.”
“I’m checking up the road,” Tuck signed.
“Go with her, Chester,” Nilda said. “Sorcha, watch the street.”
Chester followed Tuck up the road, looking beyond the broken windows at what lay inside the shops. Three down from the crockery shop, clothing hung limp from the frames of two and a half mannequins. The other half, still clothed, lay across the broken window-frame, its inanimate arm dangling in the gutter. Rain-soaked, mud splattered, he tapped its arm with his mace just to triple-check it wasn’t one of the undead.
Inside, the wall-mounted shelving units were full of wool. Jumpers, scarves, hats, gloves, he only needed one sniff to know they were rotting after months of rain, sun, and ice. But that might have put off looters from searching the stockroom.
He turned to get Tuck’s attention, but where he’d slowed down, the soldier had sped up. She’d reached an alley another four store-fronts down. Her bayonet was in hand, and she didn’t so much enter the alley as lunge, disappearing into the laneway. Mace raised, he jogged after her, reaching the alley in time to see her pull the bayonet from a corpse’s skull.
She motioned he should be quiet, then pointed at the mud. “Footprints,” she signed, her hands moving awkwardly with the bayonet she still held. “The storm. It woke them. This way.”
Chester nodded. Deal with them now, or deal with them later, they had to be dealt with. He glanced at the footprints. Two sets. Deep at the heel. Boots not shoes, and in reasonably good repair. He added two and two and realised it equalled two, not four, and not zombies, but two people, carrying heavy packs. Ahead, Tuck had stopped, close to a doorway. Slowly, she sheathed her bayonet, and unslung her silenced submachine gun. She pointed at the ground, the door, then upward, then she motioned he should be silent.
“People?” he mouthed.
She nodded. One-handed, she signed. “Friendly? Hostile?” She shrugge
d to indicate she wasn’t sure.
Chester nodded his understanding. “Nilda?” he signed.
Tuck shook her head, raised a hand to her lips, then to an ear. Then she pointed at the pistol holstered at his belt. Again, she raised a hand to an ear. “Loud. The signal.”
He nodded agreement. They appeared to have got this far without being spotted. Returning, then coming back with more people, risked them being discovered. Besides, it could be the last survivors from among Fielding’s people, returned to the harbour only to find the cruise ship gone, a new ship there in its place, and strangers milling about ashore. Inside could be Ukrainians who’d become separated from the convoy. They could be some other survivors from Northern France who’d fled the horde. Or it could be the sniper who’d been in Calais. If Fielding was correct, and if Rhoskovski knew where her ship was anchored, then perhaps his people did, too.
Tuck motioned he should go first, listening for danger.
There was another possibility, that whoever they were, they were no longer inside. He drew the pistol, stepped around Tuck, and tried the door handle. It was unlocked.
The door led to a two-metre-wide hallway. Immediately to the left of the door was a bank of twelve brass letterboxes. Beyond, a staircase took up the left-hand-side of the entrance hall. On the right-hand-side, the corridor had two doors, one near the base of the stairs, marked 1, and another at the far end of the stairs, marked with a 2, outside of which was a Persian rug. That was covered in mud, but so was the strip of carpet running up the stairs.
Tuck tapped his arm, then pointed at the door to number 2.
Chester held out a hand. He’d thought he’d heard something. And there it was again. Creaking which might simply be the building’s natural movement, or it might be the unnatural movement of someone walking about. Either way, it came from upstairs. He pointed up.