by Frank Tayell
Of course, we have no alarm on Faroe. I don’t know how it was overlooked except I, and everyone else, assumed someone would take care of it. Which we didn’t. I didn’t. Not that I can think of an easy way to set up an alarm, though I had plenty of time to consider it this afternoon. Sound is obviously a non-starter with the undead except as a lure. Flickering the streetlights would be best, but we have no control over the electrical grid. Flares would be an option if we had them, and might be the solution if someone can figure out how to make them. We had none this morning, and so I hurried back to the hotel, as fast as my limp would allow.
I was halfway there when I bumped into Kim, clearly heading in the same direction, but coming from the harbour.
“What is it? More trouble with Crawley?” she asked.
“Siobhan spotted a zombie,” I said. “Possibly recently turned. She’s hunting it. Colm’s helping. I need to raise the alarm.”
“I’ll go back to the docks, get the people gutting birds— Wait, no, not them. They’re already covered in blood. But I’ll find people. What do you want me to do with them?”
“Leave a couple on the major junctions, and get them to tell people to head home. But make sure they say it’s just one zombie. Only one, so we’re not too worried at present. Take everyone else to the supermarket. You know the one? Colm and Siobhan will organise you. I’ll get the admiral and… and we’ll take it from there.”
“On it.” She jogged back to the harbour, and I continued to the hotel, where I found I’d missed the admiral by half an hour. She’d gone to the school, responding to reports that Felicity was sick. Leaving two sailors on duty, I took Ken, Dee-Dee, Mirabelle, the two other Marines, and the four engineering students our programmers had recruited, and hurried back outside.
I was the slowest in the group on our run to the school. When we arrived, I had the others fan up and down the street as I went in, alone. The admiral wasn’t there, nor was Felicity.
Leaving Mary to lock down the school, I finally found the admiral in the nearby house Felicity shared with some of the other survivors-turned-teachers.
“You can’t come in,” the admiral said, coming to meet me at the door. She wore a facemask.
“It’s serious?” I asked.
“It might be,” she said. “Why were you looking for me?”
I ran through the explanation again.
Within half an hour, the alarm had spread across the town. Everyone was either inside, or out on the street, watching, waiting… waiting for a danger that never came.
“I don’t know if it was a zombie at all,” Siobhan said an hour later, in the admiral’s office in the hotel. “Kallie and I were patrolling the streets. With no power to that corner of town, no one’s living there permanently. We wanted to keep an eye on the people looting. It’s impossible to stop them completely, but we wanted to make sure they were only taking what they needed, and not causing too much damage to the houses.”
“That’s when you came across Dr Knight?” the admiral asked.
“She and some of the medic-trainees were collecting linen to make bandages. One of them saw the figure, through a window. We heard the medics running outside. Kallie and I went to the back of the terrace. Do you know the one? The houses are four-storey and narrow, with parking at ground level, inside a heated garage.”
“The white-clad building we thought was apartments?” the admiral said.
“Next to the bright-painted town-houses with the rear looking out to the mountains, yes,” Siobhan said. “At the back, Kallie saw the figure disappearing beneath the curve of the hillside. We set off in pursuit, but couldn’t find it.”
“Was it a zombie?” Kim asked.
“Good question,” Siobhan said. “It wasn’t heading towards us, so that would suggest no. However, Kallie and the medic are both adamant the figure was moving erratically. We paced out the distance it had travelled, timed how long it took between the medic seeing it and us arriving at the rear of the building. It was moving at a walk, not a run. And if it had been a person, they’d have run.”
“Why would any of us want to hide?” Kim asked.
“What if it wasn’t one of us?” I asked. “What if it was one of the Faroese?”
“Spying on us?” Kim asked. “Why?”
“To make sure we stayed inside the town,” I said.
“Possibly,” Siobhan said. “From the bright coat, if it’s a zombie, it’s someone recently infected. There’s a possibility that it’s one of us.”
“We need a headcount,” the admiral said. “Siobhan, can you and your people go door to door, make sure everyone is accounted for. Kim, could you drive Captain Devine up to the bridge. Ostensibly, we want to warn the Faroese. But see if they’ll allow us to search the island beyond our town. Leave the talking to Annabeth, I’d like you to watch their expressions. Are they surprised that there are zombies on the island or not.”
They left the admiral and me alone in her office.
“I should have planned for this,” I said.
“It is difficult to plan when the future is so uncertain,” Admiral Gunderson replied. “What do you think is most likely?”
“Zombies are attracted to sound,” I said. “But it might be deaf. A large explosion might have deafened the person, allowing a zombie to get close enough to infect them. But then there’s that coat. A coat clean enough to tell the colour? And a coat that wasn’t blast-damaged rags? I think it’s the Faroese.”
“So do I, but were they keeping tabs on us, or on that particular row of houses?”
“Ah, I’d not thought of that. It’s someone who lived there, and who now resents that we’re stealing their clothes?”
“It could well be,” she said. “The panic won’t help morale. It will distract for a day or two, but after will come the questions, the demands for action we can neither answer nor fulfil.”
“And all the time, Crawley is waiting in the wings,” I said. “And Felicity, what’s wrong with her?”
“The symptoms suggest nothing more than a cold,” the admiral said.
“Oh. I thought it was something serious.”
“How would she have caught a cold?” the admiral asked. “From whom? And there are many more serious contagions that begin with those symptoms. There are some tests I can run, but the equipment here is limited, potential treatment even more so. Realistically, we have to wait and see whether she gets worse, or quickly recovers.”
“You know what we used to call this sort of day back in Whitehall? An editor’s nightmare. There can be only one headline in the paper, you see, and a day like today, it would be the devil’s choice choosing. What?” I added. “Don’t tell me there’s something else?”
She picked up a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Something small that might turn out to be something big.”
I peered at the numbers on the page. “What is this?”
“An analysis of the seaweed we’ve been eating. It isn’t the variety we first thought. It isn’t poisonous,” she added. “It’s edible, but not nearly as nutritious as we assumed. Malnutrition is a serious concern. Not an imminent one, but it is something we must address. I can see no alternative except communal, regimented meals.”
“At least we’ve birds to eat.”
“Indeed. And Markus’s fried seaweed provides a change of texture, if nothing else.”
“You’ve tried some?”
“He brought me a batch. And the recipe.”
“He’s up to something,” I said. “I have no idea what. But his scheming is actually helping us at the moment. Malnutrition? Hmm. Could we send the Amundsen on a mission to Shetland or somewhere to look for vitamin tablets?”
“That depends on Calais,” the admiral said.
Day 279, 17th December
Chapter 10 - Road Kill
The Faroe Islands
We were woken by fists pounding the front door. Instantly, my dreams turned to nightmares, vividly replaying the too-many nights wh
en such a sound meant the arrival of the undead. Kim was already out of bed and by the window before the ringing doorbell was added to the racket.
“It’s Siobhan,” she said.
“There’s been a sighting,” the detective said even before we’d fully opened the front door. “A zombie. To the west.”
“Are you certain it’s a zombie?” I asked, peering up and down the night-time street still bathed in lamplight.
“Not even a little,” Siobhan said. “One of the Marines thought she saw a figure in a red coat, blue hat, and blue scarf staggering across a field. The Marine dropped her torch. By the time she’d picked it up, the figure had disappeared.”
“That sounds similar to yesterday,” Kim said. “And very much like a person avoiding contact with our guards.”
“Agreed, but we can’t take any risks,” Siobhan said. “Will you get the kids to school?”
“Of course,” Kim said.
Siobhan hurried off, and we returned inside.
“It can’t be time for school already,” Annette said.
“It’s not far off,” I said, checking the time, and was surprised to see it was far later than I’d thought. “You can have first dibs on the bathroom.”
“This is a lot of fuss for just one zombie,” Annette said, as Kim cinched the belt around her waist. “And that’s too tight!”
“You don’t want to lose it,” Kim said. “We don’t have much ammunition left, and you’ll be the only child with a gun.”
“Yeah, way too much fuss,” Annette added, checking the holster’s clasp.
“Then think of it as practice,” Kim said.
“I’ve had way too much of that,” Annette said.
“You ready, Bill?”
I tapped the knife at my belt, and the hammer hanging next to it. “Just like old times,” I said.
But if arming up before going out echoed our life in the wastes of England, what happened next didn’t.
The island’s changeable weather is becoming familiar, though I don’t think I’ll ever think of it as a friend. Rain is a daily visitor, preceded by a window-rattling wind, tugging the clouds from over the wide ocean. But as George says, as long as it’s raining, it isn’t snowing.
Yesterday, we’d made some hasty changes to our town’s routine. Mirabelle was tasked with creating a community-wide alarm. Her solution is an app, the signal transmitted via the mesh-net, and she’ll have it operational within thirty-six hours. In the meantime, we agreed to do things the old-fashioned way.
Most of the children live in the houses overlooking the school itself, but there are fourteen families like ours. For now, and probably even after Mirabelle launches her app, we’ll crocodile our way to school, collecting children along the way.
The road wasn’t frozen, but the puddles pooled deep along the kerb, and so we stuck to the middle of the road as we ambled from street to street, picking up the children and a handful of adults who volunteered to join our sleepy procession. By the twelfth house, Kim and I were at the back of a snaking line of twelve children and eight adults. Annette, with Daisy in her chair, was a few steps ahead.
“There’s no need for the other adults,” Kim said.
“I’m not one to turn down a welcome hand,” I said.
“I mean because the children are in no danger,” she said.
“Can we say that already?”
“We’ll hear danger,” Kim said. “We’ll hear a scream, a shout, a gunshot. The undead aren’t going to suddenly appear on this street, in the middle of town.”
“Ah, got you. Living like this is going to take some getting used to.”
We didn’t bother looking as we crossed the road. If I’m honest, at that point, my mind was elsewhere, on whether Siobhan was hunting one of the living Faroese. Ahead, Annette turned around, looking puzzled. A couple of the other children in front of her did the same.
“What is it?” Kim asked. And then I heard it. A mechanical rumble, a whooshing burr, and then a scream, but from out of sight.
“Get the kids—” Kim began, but before she could finish, a car roared down the road parallel to ours. Missing her by feet and me by inches, it ploughed through the puddles behind us, spraying mud and rainwater over Kim and me, and spreading panic among the children, until it slammed into the wall of the house on the corner. Plastic crumpled. Metal snapped. Glass sprayed everywhere.
“Get the kids inside!” I barked, waving at the house on the opposite corner. A bleary-eyed trio had opened the door, wearing the uncertain expression of people who didn’t know whether to rescue or fight. “There, go!” I yelled.
Kim was moving towards the car, a hunting knife in her hand. As soon as I was sure the children were being hustled to safety I followed, managing two steps before Kim reached the car. She stepped back, though she didn’t lower her knife.
“One occupant. Dead,” Kim said.
“Zombie?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure,” she said, keeping her knife raised. I looked up the street, in the direction from which the car had come.
“Bill,” Kim said. “Look at the passenger seat.”
I turned back to the car. On the passenger seat, now covered in glass, and some blood, was a blue hat.
“His jacket’s red,” Kim said. “A blue hat, a red jacket and… keep an eye on him for me, just in case.”
I stepped forward. In the driver’s seat, blood dripped from a face I recognised. “It’s Michael Jollif.”
“There are bottles in the back,” Kim said. “An entire crate of them. Half a crate. Hang on.” She levered the jammed door open. “Spirits. The label is in Danish, but I can read the numbers. I know what 40% means.”
“Then I think I know what’s happened here,” I said.
But it took all day to prove the supposition correct.
The admiral opened the door to the small morgue in the small hospital’s basement. She looked up and down the dimly lit, dank-smelling corridor before her eyes settled on me. “Only you here, Bill?”
“Siobhan wanted to walk the streets with Colm,” I said. “Which I think was her way of making sure Colm doesn’t confront Crawley. I said I’d wait here in case you needed help.”
“I don’t. I’m finished. I won’t bother with a proper autopsy.” She came to sit on the bench opposite mine. “How much did Siobhan tell you?”
“Just her initial findings,” I said.
“Michael Jollif was drunk,” the admiral said. “Drunk driving, and I think he explains the zombie sightings yesterday and this morning. Markus was very helpful. Surprisingly so.”
“He was?”
“I genuinely think he’s trying to make amends. Of course, he’ll be trouble again as soon as he feels the scales are balanced.”
“Siobhan said there was a split among the mutineers,” I said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes. Jollif and some others, mostly former civilians but not exclusively, wanted to take the Amundsen now, as they had planned. Crawley said no. Specifically, not today. He told them they should wait until The New World is on the way back. He told me that he was just stalling, that he neither has, nor had, any intention of taking the ship. He says he thought an outright admission would only cause the rebels to seize the ship alone.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“No. Jollif didn’t believe him, either. He thought Crawley planned to take the ship and leave the others here. That came via Markus, not Commander Crawley. There was a fight. Jollif forgot fighting people is harder than fighting the undead, and Crawley was a military man. Jollif was sent packing with a few bruises to remember the lesson.”
“That’s why he got drunk?”
“I would describe it as the trigger event. The abandonment of the mutiny rid him of what little hope he had left. Why he was so desperate to leave is a question I have yet to answer. Another is why he was wandering the fields.”
“But if he was drunk, that might explain why he hid from Siobha
n yesterday,” I said. “Drinking might not be a crime, but he had a guilty conscience, and didn’t want to get caught.”
“I agree. We’ll remain at alert for the next seventy-two hours, but I think this particular danger is over. As, for now if not forever, is the risk of a mutiny.”
“It’s not how I hoped we’d solve the problem,” I said. “I suppose it’s better than a battle. I’ll add another question to those we need solved, where did the spirits come from? Colm told me he’d found no large stashes anywhere in town. The bars were emptied, as were the supermarkets.”
“There I do have an answer,” the admiral said. “Crawley gave us the address of a farm they’d been using to hatch their plots. It’s north of the Gamlaraett Ferry Port.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Southwest, on the other side of this island, and that mountain. Crawley went looking for a busy harbour, but only found a car park and small jetty. To the north is an equally small farm. The greenhouses were empty of seedlings and soil, but in a shed, he found alcohol. A lot. Possibly every bottle taken from every bar in Torshavn. Maybe beyond.”
“The locals stashed it there?” I asked. “That would make sense. Close to the sea should they want to collect it, but far enough away from both the bridge and the tunnel that they didn’t worry people would sneak off to steal a bottle or twelve.”
“Until we arrived, yes. It’s far beyond the town’s limits, however, so we can’t ask the locals about its provenance.”
“But we should tell them about the crash,” I said.
“Not yet,” she said. “If they are watching, they’ll know, so let’s give them time to share word of it among themselves. We’ll give them an opportunity to ask us.”
“We should send Siobhan to examine the farm.”
“Tomorrow,” the admiral said. “We’ll give Crawley the opportunity to go there tonight and destroy any incriminating evidence.”
“You don’t want to collect it for ourselves?”