by Frank Tayell
“Well, that’s a cheery thought,” Chester said. “Seen the same myself, of course. Bullets only work if you destroy the brain. It makes you wonder. Makes you think.” Silence settled for half a second. “So what happened to them?”
“To who?” Bran asked.
“The rest of the soldiers on that road.”
“They died,” Bran said. Silence returned, and this time it settled. No, there weren’t many people on Anglesey, and fewer who would volunteer to search for other survivors. Most of the new arrivals came by boat, sailing up from Africa or down from northern Europe. Most weren’t looking for salvation, but simply a bay with a fresh water stream, and instead they found a fishing boat that directed them to the Welsh island.
Bran didn’t spend much time on Anglesey. On each return trip, he found more boats in the harbour, but not more people on land. The island was a refuge, but it wasn’t a community, not yet. George and Mary were good people, but Anglesey needed a leader. It needed—
“So where are we?” Chester asked, again cutting into Bran’s thoughts.
“That river down there, that’s the Dee,” Bran said.
“The same one we left the boats on?” Chester asked.
“The same, but it doesn’t follow a straight path through the hills. Chirk Castle’s to the southeast. A couple of miles east of here is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. Have you heard of it?”
“Should I?”
“You’d probably recognise it if you saw it. It’s about forty metres above the ground. Canal boats used to travel along it. They had it in that ‘Unbelievably British’ show a couple of years ago. You didn’t see it?”
“That’s not really my kind of viewing,” Chester said. “So you get to watch a lot of telly in the Army?”
Bran gritted his teeth. “I like to see the places I’m risking my life for,” he said, “but there was never enough time to visit them all. Eight miles northeast of the aqueduct is Wrexham. The Deeside Industrial Park, and our boat, is about twelve miles due north of that.”
“Then we’ve come completely the wrong way,” Chester said.
“Not if we’re going to the aqueduct first,” Bran said. “There were some people there the last time I came through this area. I want to see if they’ll come west.”
“This was before you got to Anglesey?”
“After,” Bran said. “On my first expedition away from the island. We think, we hope, that the Welsh mountains create a natural barrier against the undead, but that barrier works on people, too. We wanted a line of safe houses running near the border with England, a way of telling people that, if they got this far, they should keep going and not go north. You heard about Scotland?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty grim,” Chester said. “So who are these people at the aqueduct?”
“There were twenty of them,” Bran said. “The aqueduct was partially destroyed, but they’d rigged up some platforms on the supporting columns. Can’t say they were very sturdy, but they were out of a zombie’s reach. It’s not tenable in the long term so I want to persuade them to come to Anglesey.”
And not just because they needed people. Anglesey needed a leader, and there was one at the aqueduct, Brigadier Hemsworth. Bran had served with him back when he was a private and the general was only a major. It was that action that had got Bran his stripes. The brigadier was a good man, but he was holding onto too much guilt. There was no time for guilt now. Anglesey needed a leader, and the brigadier fit the bill.
“Wales is different up close,” Chester said. “Of course, I’ve been here before. For work,” he added, “but that was usually Cardiff or one of the ports. Sometimes an industrial estate. An airfield, once. You don’t notice the hills so much when you’re behind the wheel. Less when you’re a passenger riding in the back of a windowless van.”
Bran was unsure what that last comment meant. The Londoner was a tall man, broad-shouldered, and recently scarred though most people were. His build suggested something in construction, but he spoke as if he’d worked in advertising. His head was shaved, but again that was common on Anglesey among men and women alike. It was easier to keep a bald pate clean than scrub lank hair with cold water, or waste time and wood boiling up hot. There was talk about getting the nuclear power plant turned back on, but there was a lot of talk; about where to go when the undead died; about what had happened to the rest of the world; about when an American aircraft carrier might steam into Holyhead’s battered port.
Bran turned his attention back to the map. The border-country with its steep hills, deep valleys, and fast flowing streams was full of places where survivors might have taken refuge. Despite the nuclear bombs, and the conventional ordnance dropped on industrial locations; despite the undead, the murderous evacuation, the hunger, the dehydration, and the disease that must have followed; despite it all, there had to be millions of people left in Britain, clinging on, hoping for rescue. There had to, but to find them, he needed help, and they needed proper organisation. That meant the brigadier. That meant—
“I thought of taking the shilling,” Chester said, his voice once more a tree trunk across the path of Bran’s thoughts. “Years ago, I mean. When I was… well, when I should have been in school. I thought of joining up, but I didn’t like the idea of taking orders.”
“We all have to take orders from someone,” Bran said, folding the map. “It’s the nature of existence.”
“Yeah, I learned that eventually, but a little too late for it to do me any good. After I got a record, you lads didn’t want me.”
Ah, he was an ex-con, Bran thought. One who still wore his past as an identity even after his sentence was spent. “When did you see the error of your ways?”
“It’s been coming for a while,” Chester said, “but what clinched it was when a zombie bit me and I thought I was going to die. I looked at my life and I saw how little it amounted to.”
“You weren’t an ex-con?” Bran asked. “You’re a criminal who turned honest only after there were no laws or police left to stop you from taking all you wanted from anywhere you chose?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Chester said. “I thought Mr Tull told you this.”
“He told me you were reliable,” Bran said, “but you’re a crook.”
“A reformed crook,” Chester said.
“To reform, you have to atone for your crimes. How can you do that when your victims are dead?”
“I didn’t kill them,” Chester said. “I was a thief, not a murderer.”
“I meant the outbreak,” Bran said. “You can’t make amends now.” He picked up his bag, and walked east.
“Hang on,” Chester said. He slung his pack and followed. “Look, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Didn’t mean what like what?”
“I meant, I thought George had told you,” Chester said. “I thought you knew. Now you do, if we’re going to have a problem, I’d rather it was over and done with here and now. I may not know much about the countryside, but I fought my way through London, and then out of it. I know what we’re facing, and I don’t want to worry about getting a knife in the back as well as teeth in the neck.”
“A knife in the back? You think I’d kill you? You think I’d take revenge on you for all those innocent lives you ruined? Then you don’t know anything about people.”
“And you don’t know me,” Chester said. “Yeah, I robbed and I stole, and I took from those who couldn’t afford to lose it. I admit it, but that was the old me in the old world.”
“How many?” Bran asked.
“How many what?”
“How many lives did you ruin? How many did you rob?”
“I don’t know,” Chester said.
“When did you start?”
“When I was a kid,” Chester said.
“Twenty years ago?”
“A bit more, but yeah.”
“You’re saying you’ve changed?” Bran said. “Overnight, you’ve abandoned the habits of a lifetime?”
“If anything could bring that on, wouldn’t it be the undead?” Chester asked. “Look, for the last few years, it’s not like I had a choice. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”
“Sweep streets? Haul bricks? Can you drive? There’re plenty of honest ways to make a living.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Maybe I enjoyed it, or some of it, and just enough to forget the parts that I didn’t, but that changed when I got bit a few weeks ago. I thought I was going to die. I really did. I didn’t want to turn into one of them, so I tried to shoot myself. The bullet was a dud. That’s when it changed. That’s when I changed. It was in a Victorian terrace in Sydenham. A bit further down the street was a grand house. It was a massive place, the kind I dreamed of owning. I saw a flashing light. There was a guy stuck inside. We sent messages to one another with bits of paper stuck to the window. His leg was broken, and he couldn’t get out on his own so I said I’d help. There were too many zombies outside. I tried leading them away, but I ended up getting trapped. I was stuck for days. When I finally escaped, the guy had gone.”
“So?”
“So I went back,” Chester said. “I went back for him.”
“You helped someone in need? That’s what any normal person would do.”
“Well, I guess that’s my point,” Chester said.
“You’ve a lot to learn about what real life is like,” Bran said.
“Like what?”
“If you live, you’ll find out,” Bran said. “Anglesey’s that way, I’m going to the aqueduct. Keep up or go back.”
After twenty yards, he heard the crook following him.
The aqueduct had been partially destroyed. Two of the supporting columns had collapsed. Below a banner that hung limp from the aqueduct were a crashed helicopter and a cluster of mobile homes.
“That sign used to read Safety Here,” Bran said. Now it read Zombies. He took out his binoculars. “Zombies is right,” he said. “I can see two, no, three near the grey and blue campervan.”
“That’s where they lived?” Chester asked, taking the binoculars.
“It’s where they cooked,” Bran said, “but there’s no smoke from a cooking fire, which means they’re not boiling water. They slept halfway up the aqueduct. Do you see the ropes? The gantries?”
“I… ah, yeah. That doesn’t seem sensible. If the zombies came, how would they escape?”
“Climb up to the aqueduct,” Bran said. “The ropes are attached to the metal pins that the maintenance crew used to inspect the brickwork. When the undead came, they would have climbed up and followed the aqueduct away.”
“And they changed the sign before they left?” Chester asked.
“Looks that way,” Bran said. He took the binoculars back. “The general would have known to come to Anglesey, so it must have happened recently. Unless… unless he got word of someone else, somewhere else. A better place to go, maybe? Come on.”
“We’re going down there?” Chester asked.
“They’d have left a lot of useful gear behind,” Bran said. “This is a good spot, with a clear line of sight for miles. We can make sure it’s safe for anyone else who comes along.”
Halfway down the hill, Bran drew his bayonet and fixed it to the barrel of his rifle. Chester dragged the machete free from his belt with an audible rasp. Bran didn’t think it was loud enough for the zombies to hear, but the creatures did notice them approach.
“Go left,” Bran said, as he moved to the right, one eye on the zombies, the other on his footing. The ground was uneven, and a twisted ankle would be a death sentence. Two of the creatures were heading towards him, the third towards Chester. He focused on the foe in front as the slope levelled out.
The undead wore matching green windbreakers. They weren’t military, but Bran couldn’t help think of them as uniforms. A sinking dread set in as he realised who they might once have been. As the zombies drew nearer, their features became clearer. Both had dark stains around their mouths and other stains on their clothing, but they hadn’t been undead for long. Bran didn’t recognise them, but he wasn’t sure even their mothers would, not now.
Twenty yards from the creatures, he stopped. He confirmed there were no other threats before returning his attention to the two shambling figures lurching towards him. Ten yards. Eight. Five. Three. He lunged, spearing the rifle-bayonet forward. He’d done it in training. He’d done it in Afghanistan. He’d done it in Somalia in an action that had gone unreported and unremarked. The blade met the target, sinking deep into the creature’s eye. A twist, a wrench, a backward step, and the blade came free as the zombie fell. He marked his second target and lunged again. Again the creature fell. He looked to his left. Chester, gore-covered machete in hand, was already walking towards him. Bran wiped the bayonet clean on the fallen zombie’s jacket, and continued towards the campsite.
A door banged open and closed with the wind. There were dozens of corpses close to the caravans, but none moved. The ladders leading up to the gantries had been kicked to the ground. The bulk of those wood and plastic platforms blocked Bran’s view of the next twenty feet, but he could make out the ropes leading up and around the side of the aqueduct.
“I thought fixed bayonets was a thing from the movies,” Chester said. “You know, those ones about the trenches.”
“There might be more zombies,” Bran said. “Check under the—” He heard it, and looked up just before the zombie fell from gantry, fifteen feet above, right on top of him. Bran was knocked to the ground, and his head hit it the hardest. Winded, stunned, it was all he could to get his forearm up under the creature’s throat. He pushed up and back as the thrashing zombie snapped its teeth inches from his face. And then the weight was gone as Chester grabbed the creature, and hurled it off. The zombie kept flailing as it flew five feet through the air, landing on its back. It rolled to its knees in time for Chester’s boot to slam into its head. The zombie fell to the ground. Chester raised his foot again, and stamped down, crushing the zombie’s skull.
Bran rolled to his knees, and grabbed his rifle, slipping the safety off as he aimed upward. Chester drew a revolver from his pocket. All was still.
“Watch the gantries,” Bran said, as he scanned the river, and then the grassland over which they’d walked. They seemed alone. He rubbed his hand on the back of his head. It hurt, but there was no blood.
“Thank you,” he said.
Chester shrugged. “It’s what any person would do, isn’t it? Help someone in need.”
Bran nodded, conceding the point. “Nice revolver. Is it loaded?”
“Of course,” Chester said.
“You carry a loaded revolver in your coat pocket?” Bran asked. “Remind me to give you a lesson on gun safety when we get back to Anglesey.”
“I’d rather risk shooting myself than be torn apart by the undead,” Chester said.
There was a thump, a bang, a clatter. It didn’t come from above, but from one of the caravans.
“Sounds like it’s trapped,” Chester said.
“When I say, open the door,” Bran said, detaching the bayonet. He slung the rifle. Unsuppressed shots were dangerous, and bullets were scarce, to be kept for the times when danger was greatest. Bran knew what was inside the caravan, and knew how dangerous the undead could be, but from the sounds, there was only one zombie trapped inside.
“Now!” Bran said.
Chester pulled the door open. The zombie, no longer beating against immovable metal, tumbled down onto the grass. Bran stabbed the bayonet through its temple. As the blade bit into bone, a flash of memory came back to him. He dragged the blade free, and turned the corpse over. He didn’t recognise the face, not really, not twisted twice in death, but he recognised the wood and jade cross around her neck.
“Her name was Bernie,” he said. “Or maybe it was Bernice.”
“She was one of the brigadier’s people?” Chester asked.
Bran d
idn’t answer. He glanced into the caravan. There wasn’t much inside beyond a few sheets and pillows still in their plastic wrappers. He walked over to the next campervan, took one look inside, and walked out again. “Damn.”
“What?” Chester walked up the steps. “Is that the brigadier?” he asked, looking inside.
“It is,” Bran said.
“He’s been shot,” Chester said.
“Obviously.”
Chester went inside. “Here, come and look at the wound,” he called. “It wasn’t self-inflicted. Someone shot him.” He knelt down, and rolled up the brigadier’s sleeves and then his trouser legs.
“What are you doing?” Bran asked.
“Checking for a bite mark,” Chester said. “I don’t think I’ll find one.”
“Why?”
“It’s my professional opinion,” Chester said. “As someone familiar with crime scenes,” he added.
“You said were a crook, not a detective.”
“Right, and though I had a few brushes with the law, they never pinned anything on me. Not anything serious, anyway. You know why? Because I know what evidence usually gets left behind. I know crime scenes, and that’s what this is. It’s a robbery and a murder. There’re no bite marks, and that removes the only innocent reason the man was shot. The shelves are empty. The drawers are open. This group was robbed, and this man was killed. How did the others get infected? What did you know about these people?”
Bran took a closer look around the caravan. “I came through here about two weeks ago,” Bran said. “The brigadier had been at one of those muster points. When he realised what the vaccine was doing, he stopped people taking it. He led them away, tried to organise them. The undead came. He got some out, and got them as far as here. There were about twenty of them, but I’m not sure of the precise numbers. I didn’t stay long, I had a rendezvous to keep.”