by Wood, J N
‘Petrol,’ the kid replied.
‘So not diesel?’ Roy asked.
The kid looked confused. ‘Diesel?’ he queried.
‘I’d leave it if I were you Roy,’ I called out to him.
‘Food,’ the kid said, pointing to the house. ‘Trade?’
‘We could do with some food,’ I told Roy.
‘Okay,’ Roy told him. ‘We’ll have a look.’
The kid grinned and pointed at the house again. ‘Oui?’
‘Oui,’ Roy agreed and gestured to the house.
‘Bring the kid’s AR-15 with you Christophe,’ Roy said.
‘Oui, oui, oui,’ I replied and reached into the back to grab it.
The inside of the house looked like a very badly organised second-hand shop. There was stuff everywhere, more vacuum cleaners than I could count, hundreds of cardboard boxes, three or four fridges, a couple of washing machines.
The kid brought us a cardboard box containing cans of something.
Roy picked one up. ‘Hot dog sausages.’
I rolled back my sleeve. ‘How many cans for the watch?’
The kid smiled and handed Roy the whole box. He waited expectantly for my watch. I took it off and handed it to him.
‘Battery dead,’ I told him.
He took the watch and started rummaging through a box. After a few seconds he moved onto another. He spun around to face us, holding a Garmin watch charger in his hand.
‘Fucking hell,’ I said. ‘Where did you get that from?’
The kid just smiled and slotted the watch into the charger.
‘We’re in France Chris,’ Roy said. ‘Not the Amazon. They’ve got all the mod cons you know.’
‘Yeah I suppose.’
Still holding the watch and charger, the kid walked past us and out through the front door. Roy gestured for us to follow.
As we left, the kid was turning on a generator at the side of the house.
‘He seems to be doing alright for himself,’ I said.
‘What do you think happened to his parents?’ Roy asked.
‘Don’t ask him. I’d rather not know. It won’t be a happy story.’
‘Hopefully he’ll be able to trade something he needs for the AR-15,’ Roy said pointing to it, still slung over my shoulder.
‘Oh yeah,’ I remembered, and handed it to the grateful kid.
I offered the kid my hand. ‘Je m’appelle Chris.’
He confidently placed his hand within mine. ‘Moi c’est Philippe.’
‘Bonjour Philippe,’ I said. ‘Merci.’
Roy stepped closer to him, holding out his hand. ‘Je m’appelle Roy.’
‘Salut Roy,’ Philippe said, shaking Roy’s hand.
A few seconds passed, the three of us looking at each other while the generator rumbled away.
‘Okay then,’ I announced. ‘Au revoir Philippe. Merci again.’
Philippe looked up at me and raised one finger. He spun around and raced back into the house, returning with two cans of Coke in his hands, the AR-15 hidden away inside.
‘Good luck,’ he told us, handing over the Cokes.
‘Good luck to you as well,’ I said.
Chapter 25: Chickens
‘Well that was a refreshing change,’ I said as we drove back up the lane.
‘Somebody actually helping us?’
‘Yeah that,’ I replied, and took a sip of my Coke.
‘He did try and kill you. He pulled the trigger. He wasn’t to know it was empty.’
‘Yeah I’ve forgiven him for that.’ I held up my drink. ‘He gave me this, and he was just defending himself.’
We filled up the fuel tank at the end of the lane. I felt guilty for taking sixty litres of petrol from Philippe. I suppose he could get something worthwhile for the AR-15. He’s probably got bullets for it somewhere in that house.
Once we were back on the main road, Roy unfolded the road map on his lap. ‘Right then. I’ve figured it out. It’s just Le Mans and Rouen that we might have to detour around. Probably a few other places but I can’t tell how big they are.’
Four cars appeared on the horizon. They were on the other side of the road, heading for us.
I pulled us over onto the hard shoulder and turned the engine off.
‘Do you need a piss?’ Roy asked, still looking at the map.
‘Get down. There’s cars coming towards us.’
We both slid down our seats as much as possible.
‘Did they see us?’ Roy asked.
‘I saw them so maybe.’
Neither of us moved. We just listened to the four cars as they got closer and closer. My chin was pressed against my chest, so my heartbeat was very loud and fast in my head.
The vehicles zoomed past us, not sounding like they slowed at all. We both edged up our seats and twisted around, watching the cars moving away from us.
‘Maybe they didn’t see us,’ I said.
‘Not everyone will be trying to kill other people. They probably just need to be somewhere.’
Once they were out of sight, we set off again.
‘Do you think we’ll get to Calais today then?’ I asked.
‘Yeah hopefully. If the roads are like this and we don’t get stopped again, we should be fine.’
‘I never thought I’d get here,’ I said.
‘Don’t count your chickens just yet. Still a long way to go.’
‘Yeah but we sailed across the Atlantic Ocean,’ I reminded him. ‘That’s fucking mental. Driving home from France is a piece of piss after that.’
‘No I’ll give you that. Crossing the Atlantic is crazy.’
An hour and a half later we drove around Grand-Poitiers. This did have a wall and a small community living on the outside of it. Roy managed to keep us on roads that avoided getting too close to them. Only a couple of times did we catch glimpses of them in the distance. It looked very similar to Bordeaux.
‘There might be quite a few places we need to avoid then,’ Roy admitted. ‘I’d discounted Grand-Poitiers.’
‘I wonder if England is the same,’ I said.
‘Once you get around London you should be okay. The M1 doesn’t go through any cities.’
‘Oh fuck yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to get into Leeds won’t I? Unless Calverley isn’t within their walls. It is on the outskirts of Leeds.’
‘If they have walls at all,’ Roy added.
‘I hope they do. It might mean Joanne is safe within them. What about you? Will you be okay getting to Norwich?’
‘Don’t know. Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich might have walls. Who knows? I’ll try to check on my sister first anyway.’
‘Oh yeah. She’s in London isn’t she?’
‘Yep, in Brixton.’
‘I’ll stick with you until you find your sister,’ I told him. ‘Then I’ll carry on.’
‘Thanks but you don’t have to. I’m sure you’ll be desperate to get home once we’re in England.’
‘I’m desperate to get home now, but you’ve helped me enough.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘What’s your sister called?’
‘Alice.’
‘Why did you get Royston and she got a normal name?’
‘That’s her middle name,’ he said. ‘Her first name is Bluestone.’
‘Bluestone?’
‘Yep. It’s what Stonehenge is made of.’
‘Okay. Does your family have any connection to Stonehenge?’
‘No I don’t think so. They just like it there.’
There was something in the road up ahead, a dead deer maybe.
Nope, it’s a person.
We drove past it slowly, to confirm if it was definitely dead.
It was.
The number of bodies starting increasing, three or four here and there as we drove along, all in the outside and inside lane. The middle lane was left clear. Staying in the middle meant we just drove through the odd brown stain.
All to
o soon the lanes on both sides of us were full of the dead, sometimes piled so high they were spilling over the central reservation onto the other side of the road. There were a lot of squashed disgusting messes in the middle lane now, replacing the brown stains. The messes barely resembled humans.
Five minutes had passed and we were still driving between piles of bodies.
‘They must have brought in snow ploughs to clear this lane,’ Roy said.
‘So why are they all dying at the same time?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been thinking about it since that field. Maybe when a few of them drop the others hang around, like they need to stay within the swarm. Then they also come to the end of their second coming. Or something like that.’
‘We’ll probably never know the answer,’ I told him.
The piles began to lessen and the numbers dropped, eventually down to just a few, and then none.
‘How many was that?’ I asked. ‘Hundreds of thousands? Millions?’
‘A lot. Do you want me to drive?’
I stopped us in the middle of the road, not worrying about another car coming. ‘Yep can do.’
I checked Jack’s phone after we set off. Joanne’s number was still going straight to voicemail.
‘Is the internet still not working?’ Roy asked.
‘Nope, still nothing.’
‘Have you checked to see if data roaming is off?’
I looked up at him, angry with myself if that turned out to be the case. ‘Fuck’s sake. No I haven’t.’
I quickly checked and found it still switched on.
‘Yeah of course it’s on. We used it in Canada didn’t we? I nearly shit myself then. That would have been really fucking annoying.’
The roads we were taking skirted around the edges of all the towns and cities we came across. Some had walls, some we didn’t get close enough to find out, and most were just abandoned. It wasn’t until we got to Rouen that we had to leave the main road and use the smaller roads. Otherwise we would have driven too close to the centre. We weren’t willing to risk it, not now.
The small roads around Rouen had a scattering of dead bodies, but not many at all really, compared to the amount we saw earlier. We saw a few live people as well. I assumed they were zombies at first, but they didn’t start hissing or chasing after us.
A handful of vehicles passed us, none tried to stop us. We both wondered out loud where the military was.
The sun was setting when we got back onto the A28, to begin the final stretch to Calais. I couldn’t stop the excitement bubbling up inside me. I was also confident Roy had the ability to get us across the English Channel.
Two hours later it was nearing ten o’clock. The recently built outer wall of Calais faced us. It was different here, the shanty town surrounding it empty. The shacks were there, looking very similar to the ones we’d seen before, but no people. Not unless they all go to bed at ten o’clock. I was expecting to see people huddled around little fires.
We turned down a road that should take us to the water, the wall now on our right. This meant driving on the wrong side of the road, but I don’t think it really matters at the moment. We drove slowly, trying to spot people in the shanty town. We made it all the way down to the beach without seeing a single person.
We stopped at a roundabout at the end of the road. Three sculptures sat in the middle of it. They looked like buoys. According to the map, the beach should be further down the road opposite us. There seemed to be a lot of houses on our left. The new outer wall turned at a right angle next to the roundabout. It looked like it had been built along a road that followed the contour of the coast.
‘We don’t need to get into the centre of Calais,’ Roy said, and pointed in the direction of the water. ‘The coast is just there so one of these houses must have a boat sat on the drive. We don’t need a big one. We could row it.’
‘Let’s put rowing as the last resort please.’
‘Swimming is the last resort,’ Roy said.
‘After my swim in the Atlantic I’m never going swimming again.’
‘It’s only twenty odd miles.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’ I asked.
‘Yes of course. I’m not planning on swimming it.’
‘Let’s drive around these houses then,’ I suggested.
Roy took the first left off the roundabout. He continued to drive on the left, like we were already back home. I immediately felt incredibly homesick. The street looked like it could have been in England.
‘Looks really English around here,’ Roy said. ‘We are really close I suppose.’
‘I was thinking the exact same thing.’
We turned right and entered a thin road. ‘Let’s get closer to the beach,’ Roy said.
At the end of the road we turned left. We still couldn’t see the water, but we could smell it. Roy continued turning right at every opportunity, trying to get us closer. We stopped when we couldn’t go any further. A red barrier blocked our path. On the other side of the barrier was a car park. Inside that car park was a large SUV. Hooked up to the back of it was a trailer, a small boat sat on top.
Our new boat.
‘That is pretty much fucking ideal,’ I said.
We both got out of the car, leaving it parked outside someone’s home. Roy took his gun. I opened the back door and retrieved my baseball bat. It was quiet. The only sound was the lapping of the waves.
Something flapped past my head, causing me to let out a little scream. I caught sight of a bat flying haphazardly towards the houses behind us.
‘What was that, a bat?’ Roy asked with a smile.
‘Yep. Didn’t know what it was at first.’
Roy pointed to the back of the boat. ‘It’s got a motor Christophe. No rowing.’ He walked up to the SUV and peered into the windows. ‘Empty,’ he whispered. He tried one of the door handles and found it locked.
I crept towards the back of the SUV, where the trailer was connected to the tow bar. ‘It’s padlocked Roy.’
‘What is?’
‘The trailer to the car,’ I told him.
‘We’ll just drag the boat to the water if we have to.’ He looked to the dark shapes around us. ‘I think the water is just on the other side of these dunes. I’m going up to check the fuel.’
‘Are we going now?’ I asked.
‘Fuck no. I’m not doing it at night. It’s too dark. We’d end up going around in circles. We don’t have the same equipment we had on the Penelope.’
‘Fair enough. How are we looking?’
Roy stared at the motor and shrugged. ‘There’s some fuel there.’
‘Nothing more precise?’ I asked.
‘Nope.’
‘I’m guessing it’s diesel, because we still have some of Philippe’s petrol left.’
‘Yeah it will be,’ Roy replied. ‘Can’t you put a bit of petrol in a diesel engine?’
‘It doesn’t fuck it up as much as putting diesel in a petrol engine. I don’t think it’s recommended though.’
‘Best not then,’ Roy said, continuing to inspect the boat.
‘What if we can’t see England tomorrow?’ I asked him. ‘How do we stop ourselves from sailing back into the Atlantic Ocean?’
‘We’re more likely to go into the North Sea, but I could navigate using the sun. There’s probably a compass on Jack’s phone.’
‘Very good fucking point,’ I said, unlocking the phone and finding that very same thing. ‘It does.’
‘I want to heat up one those cans Philippe gave us. Shall we have a BBQ on the beach?’
I looked around at the dark houses around us, thinking of the empty shanty town next to the wall. ‘Yeah can do. Do it on the other side of the dunes though.’
‘I’ve got a lighter,’ Roy said. ‘We need something to burn.’
A bin sat next to a white cabin at the edge of the car park. I wandered over to it. Fast food packaging was spilling out of the top.
‘Got some shit h
ere Roy. Just need some wood.’
‘We could burn your baseball bat.’
‘I don’t fucking think so.’
‘It’s a zombie killing bat,’ he said. ‘There are no more zombies.’
‘It’s gonna be a Roy killing bat if you come anywhere near it.’
I started walking towards some shrubs behind the cabin, but spun around at the sound of loud thuds. Roy was back on the road in front of the nearest house, kicking the wooden fence. I walked over to him.
‘It’s painted wood,’ I told him. ‘You’re gonna poison us.’
‘We’re just going to heat the cans up, not open them.’
‘That reminds me,’ I said. ‘Do you have a can opener?’
‘They’ve got ring pulls.’
‘That’s all right then. We’re still gonna breathe in the toxic smoke this fence is gonna give off.’
‘Cover your mouth or don’t sit close to the fire,’ he told me. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘I’m happy to eat the hot dog sausages cold.’
‘I’m making a fire,’ he said, kicking the fence. ‘I want some hot food to celebrate getting here.’
‘I’d prefer a beer,’ I told him.
One of the long panels broke off. He leaned it against what was left of the fence and started stamping on it to break it up.
‘I’ll collect some of this rubbish up for you,’ I told him, walking back to the bin. ‘I’m gonna eat my food cold though.’
An hour later we were sat on the beach. Roy’s fire was still burning about twenty feet away from us. We sat at the edge of its light. The water sounded close, but we still couldn’t see it. I’d eaten my sausages but Roy’s canned food sat on the sand between his legs, still too hot to open.
‘It’s just over there,’ Roy said, pointing to the darkness in front of us. ‘If it was light we might be able to see it.’
‘I’ll assume you’re talking about England.’
‘It’s quite hard not to get excited, now that I’m so close to home. I’m looking forward to seeing my sister and mum. Hopefully my friends back home are okay as well.’
‘Who’s counting their chickens now?’ I asked.
‘It’s okay, I’m not…fucking hell it’s still boiling hot,’ he cried out, dropping the can back onto the sand.
‘Are you sleeping in the car tonight?’ I asked.