Surviving the Evacuation 11: Search and Rescue

by Frank Tayell

  Eamonn darted forward, risking a high swing aimed at the creature’s exposed neck. The blade sunk deep into rotting flesh, and lodged in the zombie’s spine. The zombie fell, taking Eamonn’s axe with it. He took a step towards the weapon, but the other living dead were lurching closer. A ragged creature with tattered lips and a jagged scar running across its face swiped its arm at Eamonn’s head. Its hand hit, just below his ear. Eamonn staggered back as the zombie stepped over the axe still embedded in its fallen comrade. He took another step back as he tried to draw the bayonet from his belt. It wouldn’t come free. He took another step, and another, backing away as the zombies came forward. He spared a glance at his belt, saw the clasp on the knife’s sheath, and finally remembered to unbutton it.

  Sharpened eighty-year-old steel in his hand, he told himself not to panic. He glanced behind. The road was clear. As long as he didn’t rush, he could manage this easily enough. He darted forward three steps, slicing the bayonet low, aiming for the lead creature’s knee. The blade cut, and then it stuck, but Eamonn dragged it free as he spun and danced back up the road. Had that been his axe, he’d have knocked the creature down. As it was, the zombie wobbled on its leg as it took a lurching step, but then was pitched to the ground by the two creatures behind.

  Don’t panic, he told himself. He needed his axe, but he needed his pack more. He had to retrieve those maps. He backed away, leading the undead from the fire engine, forcing them to spread out. As long as he didn’t panic, as long as he was patient, he could kill the undead and retrieve his gear.

  Eamonn heard another sound. It came from the office block the fire engine was partially buried in. A thunderous creak as a girder collapsed. A crunch of metal as the frontage dropped onto the truck. A loud pop as the fire engine’s partially deflated tyres blew. A louder crack as the joists gave way. A deafening roar as a cascade of bricks, dust, and mortar erupted from the collapsing building.

  Coughing concrete, spitting dust, Eamonn staggered away, not stopping until he was back at the junction. He needed the bag. He needed those maps. Another few minutes, and he’d go back for it. As the dust began to settle, he realised he’d have to dig his gear free. As it settled more, he realised it wasn’t entirely coming to rest on the ground. Ten feet away, a dust-covered figure staggered towards him, another two close behind.

  “Why won’t you die?”

  He turned and ran, and this time he didn’t stop.

  Sweat trickled down his face, running lines through the thin layer of concrete dust. He regretted the waste of water since his bottle was close to empty. The two spares had been in his pack. He’d planned to find a stream when he got out of London, but that was meant to be hours ago. Between the gaps in the dense-packed suburban homes, he could make out the distant and never oblong skyscrapers of central London. They were too close. He couldn’t be more than eight miles away. He wanted to weep with the frustration of it all, but that would mean more water wasted. His spirits sunk lower.

  He’d deliberately left without any food, but now he had no maps, no water, and no weapons except the bayonet. Eight miles was two hours of good walking, less than half that on a bike. He wondered whether he should go back. Part of him knew that would be sensible, that he could get back there today and leave again tomorrow, but if he did, he wouldn’t be able to sneak away. Greta would insist on coming with him. He jogged north.

  The houses became a row of shops. The newsagent had been gutted, as had the corpse that lay in the doorway. The deli next to it had smashed windows and empty shelves. The accountant’s was, unsurprisingly, untouched.

  The door was still locked, but that broke after a second’s levering with the bayonet. The air inside was stale, un-breathed and uncirculated for months. It was the smell of a tomb. On the desk nearest to the window were a backpack and an open first-aid kit. Underneath was an unrolled sleeping bag.

  Just as he realised what that meant, there came a crashing clatter from behind him. He spun around as a zombie lurched out of a back room. It staggered forward, arms swinging, scattering filing trays and USB-mice from the desks. Eamonn charged, the bayonet outstretched, bellowing and screaming his rage and defiance. The blade hit flesh. A second later, so did Eamonn. Momentum pushed the thrashing zombie back. The bayonet was embedded in its shoulder. Eamonn tugged, but he couldn’t free it. The zombie clawed at his throat. He knocked it back, grabbed the first thing he saw, a phone, and smashed it down on the creature’s skull. Bone didn’t break, but the plastic casing did, sending fragments of wire and circuitry across the room. He grabbed a keyboard, and punched it lengthwise into the zombie’s face. Dislodged keys sprayed out in every direction. The zombie didn’t notice. It staggered on. Eamonn jumped back, looking for something, anything that could be used as a weapon and saw a Big Ben paperweight. He grabbed it, swung, and his blow knocked the zombie onto the desk. He changed his grip, jumped forward, and stabbed the paperweight through the creature’s eye. The zombie was still.

  He had to push, pull, and twist to free his bayonet. Exhausted, he collapsed into an office chair, his eyes on the zombie, but seeing the person she’d been. He couldn’t guess at her age, not now, but she’d been a survivor, and she’d been here long enough to unroll her sleeping bag. He stared at that for a long moment, knowing it was important, but it took another full minute before he realised why. She’d found something here, in this very building, something that made it worth staying in an accountant’s rather than searching for a more secure refuge.

  It was water. He found four large cooler-bottles in the corridor between the front and back offices. One was empty, probably since before the outbreak. A second had been opened, probably by the survivor. The other two were sealed. The corridor was dark, and he hoped that meant the water was still potable. He ripped the seal from the top, and then couldn’t work out how to get the water out without spilling it on the floor. He drew his bayonet, but remembered the blade was hardly clean. He found a ballpoint pen at the back of the manager’s desk drawer. He made two small holes in the bottle’s top, and used the pen like a straw to suck some of the wondrous nectar from the bottle.

  The woman’s gear was mostly useless. He kept the pack, but not the sleeping bag. The matches, but not the clothes. The two label-less cans were the real prize, but there was no weapon. The woman must have dropped it when she’d gone out and been bitten. She’d returned because…

  “Because she hoped she was immune.”

  That left the question of what he should do. Go on, or go back. It wasn’t really a question. Eight miles was still eight miles. He had to go on. For Greta, for the children, for his family, but not today. He was exhausted.

  The accountant’s wasn’t secure, but above the shops was a block of small flats. In the hallway on the top floor he found a bicycle padlocked to the bannisters, and the key for the bicycle lock in the second flat he checked. A bigger prize was the box of red liquorice in a cupboard above the sink. All of the other food had turned mouldy. Quite what that said about the ingredients of the liquorice, Eamonn wasn’t sure, and wasn’t going to dwell on, not when he could concentrate on the wonderfully alien flavour of the sugary treat.

  It was a small flat, a one bedroom with a knock-through lounge-kitchen, and wet-room with toilet and shower but no bath. It was small, but not too small. Certainly, it was larger than a lot of hotel rooms he’d stayed in. The flat had belonged to a man who’d lived alone. The walls were covered in posters of star-ships except for the one that was covered in a far-too-large TV. Behind it were windows that could be covered by blackout blinds, though those were currently open, showing a view of dense-packed streets dotted with golden-leafed trees. He couldn’t see any landmarks, but the houses seemed to go on forever.

  Next to the window was a portable air-conditioning unit. Next to that was a stack of computers and hard drives. Facing the TV was a leather armchair with speakers in the headrest. At the side was a holster for a curving keyboard, and another for a controller with luminous bu
ttons. He collapsed into the chair, wondering if the solitary courier-gamer who’d lived in the flat had been happy with his life. As he closed his eyes, memories of his own life came back to him, of the miserable times there had been in Dublin, and the brief days of happiness since he’d found Greta.

  He had to reach Anglesey. He’d get out of London tomorrow, then to the Midlands, and then to Wales. He had a bike, now, so it shouldn’t take more than three days. Four at the outside. Five if he was unlucky. In five days, he should be on a ship, sailing back to London, to Greta, to the children, to his family.

  Chapter 14 - The Royal Train

  East Finchley to Cuddington, 27th September, Day 199

  A crowbar wasn’t the best weapon to wield while riding a bike, but it was the only weapon Eamonn had found. The tip crunched into the zombie’s skull, and he almost lost his grip on the mass of padding he’d taped to the other end. He swerved to the right, then to the left, overcompensated, and almost cycled straight into the four undead slouching out of the fire-ravaged police station. He clutched the length of steel to the handlebars, ducked his head low, and pedalled frantically until the road ahead was empty of the living dead for as far as he could see. He didn’t look back. As his fingers slipped on the brain and bone adhering to the metal, he decided no one could fight while riding a bike.

  Chester had spun many a story of how he’d charged at the undead, sword raised, while travelling through England with Nilda. Eamonn decided Chester must have been exaggerating. Actually, considering that Chester had never told the story while Nilda had been within earshot, he’d probably been lying.

  Another road, another pack of the undead, and Eamonn swerved the bike to the left, up onto the pavement, and across the forecourt of a drive-in car wash.

  He was travelling with more gear than on the day before. During his search of the flats for a weapon, he’d found a watch, a torch, and a box of matches, but no food other than the liquorice to add to the label-less cans. He’d eaten one can while waiting for dawn, and packed the other, but most of the extra weight was water. He’d filled every bottle he could find from the canisters in the accountant’s. He still had his bayonet, and the radiation-dosimeter clipped to his belt, but there was no way of replacing the lost maps. He’d taken them from Chester’s room in the Tower. Though they’d not contained a route north, they’d marked out various different areas that, Eamonn assumed, contained the safe houses. He told himself it didn’t matter, that his route was being determined by the undead. All he’d lost was the illusion of a safety net, but he found no comfort in that thought.

  Finally, he saw a bridge, a sign for a railway and, next to it, an abandoned bulldozer. It balanced precariously on the edge of the embankment leading down to the tracks. The dozer had knocked a hole in the six-foot-high wall and dislodged the chain-link for thirty feet in both directions. He slowed, preparing to dismount. The bike shook and rattled as the thin tyres failed to find purchase on the rubble and debris.

  Over the sound, he almost didn’t hear it. The zombie was on the far side of the wall. As Eamonn passed through the gap, the creature lurched forward, knocking him from the bike. He tumbled down the embankment, bike and zombie skittering after him. Brick and stone tore his clothes and bit into his flesh as rolled down the incline, and then to his feet. The bike landed eight feet from him, the zombie two feet from that, but behind the creature were a dozen more. The undead were still slowly rising to their feet, but in another second, they’d be upright.

  He took a step back and heard a metallic creak. He glanced to his left. The bulldozer teetered on the edge of the embankment. Dirt and pebbles slipped and fell from underneath the precariously balanced treads. There was a snarl from the undead. He shouldn’t have looked. He shouldn’t have been distracted. The creatures were upright, and too close to the bike. There was a grinding screech. The bulldozer rolled forward. Spraying gravel and grit as its heavy blade ploughed through the thin topsoil, the vehicle slid down the embankment. Eamonn dived backwards. The zombies staggered forward. The dozer slammed into the pack, pulverising the creatures beneath its massive blade, crushing them under its heavy treads.

  For the second time in less than a minute, Eamonn pulled himself to his feet. The zombies were… gone. A few limbs protruded from under the heavy machine, but the rest of the creatures were buried beneath the yellow dozer. The zombie that had knocked him from the bike was still moving, crawling along the ground towards him. As the dust cleared, he realised the zombie’s legs were missing below the knees. Eamonn raised the crowbar as the creature pulled itself another few inches. He swung the metal bar down on its skull.

  The bike was covered in dust but, miraculously, the tyres looked intact and the chain was still attached. He wheeled it away from the dozer.

  “I lost the maps because of a fire engine, but was saved thanks to a bulldozer. Now that’s a better story than charging at zombies on a bike. Yes, that’s one to tell the kids.”

  He mounted the bike, and a little unsteadily, cycled north. In three days he’d be in Anglesey. Four days at the outside. Five if he was unlucky.

  Distance was hard to judge, but the watch said it was eleven and the shadows told him it was noon when he crossed the bridge over the river. It was his fifth river since leaving London, but the first that truly deserved the name. The others had been little more than gullies filled with slow-flowing mud. This was different, a fast flowing torrent covered in bubbling scum and floating corpses. Or he thought they were corpses until one rolled over and raised its arm.

  “That’s just rigor mortis,” he muttered, though he knew it wasn’t. When he resumed cycling, he found it harder to pick up his pace. He needed rest. He needed food. He needed a map.

  He’d found a tourist guide to London in the flat, but he’d ventured beyond its last page an hour before. The names of the train stations he went through meant nothing to him. Occasionally, the railway ran alongside a road. Even more occasionally there would be a sign. Mostly, the signs indicated a motorway, and he knew well enough to avoid those.

  Other than to Kent, he’d not ventured far from central London since the outbreak, but he’d heard the stories that others had told. He’d listened to the accounts of Tuck and Jay and, later, Nilda and Chester. He’d not believed them at first, but part of that was due to arrogance and the rest was due to fear. That same fear had made him seek the obvious strength in McInery until he realised that her strength was rooted in arrogant delusion. Kent had changed that. Kent had changed everything for Eamonn, though change had been on its way before then. Or perhaps it was meeting Greta that meant he was finally able to let go of the past. It wasn’t just Greta, it was the children as well. He’d found his family. He had everything he’d ever wanted, though in a way he’d never imagined, but in a way far better than any dream because it was real. As long as he could reach Anglesey. Three days. Five at the outside, but if he failed…

  For twenty minutes, he sprinted along the side of the tracks. The bicycle was lightweight, but the thin tyres were designed for darting through city streets, not for the uneven gravel-coated railway. He was already slowing when he saw the five undead. There was no way he’d be able to cycle past them. To their right were fields, but they were surrounded by dense hedgerows. To the creatures’ left were train carriages. He assumed there was a locomotive somewhere in the distance. It was an old train, and oddly coloured in dark paint a shade and style he’d never before seen on a British railway.

  Behind him, the tracks were empty. He hesitated. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he was certain that he was heading northwest, and that was the right direction. Fighting came with a risk, not just of death, but that he’d lose time. If he was forced off the tracks, or if he lost the bike, he’d lose even more. The zombies were staggering towards him, slipping on the gravel, tripping on the sleepers, but there were still only five.

  He leaned the bike against a broken signal box and walked towards the undead. The nearest wore a camouflage jacke
t. Not a soldier’s uniform, but a civilian’s cheap coat. Male, Eamonn thought as he stretched his arms. The zombie eight paces behind had been female, wearing trousers, boots, and a shredded blouse. The three behind, he couldn’t tell. He swung the crowbar low, ducking as he slammed the metal bar into the zombie’s knee. Its hand clawed within inches of his face as it toppled to the ground. Eamonn skipped back a step, and another, his eyes on the four upright zombies. Another low blow, and the female creature was down. He swung, cleaving the metal bar into its skull.

  The other three were getting nearer. The zombie in the camouflage jacket was trying to stand, but its knee wouldn’t support its weight. It was taking too long. Time was running out, and London didn’t have enough time left. Eamonn charged, swinging wildly. The blow smashed into a zombie’s temple, but that took the momentum out of his swing. A hand curled around his arm. He jerked himself free. He kicked, stabbed, punched, and cut his way through the creatures until he was standing close to the rearmost carriage, and they were between him and his bike. Two still stood, and a third was dragging itself along the ground. No, two more were forcing their way through the hedgerow near the signal box where he’d propped his bike. Still, he hesitated, until he heard gravel crunch behind him. A zombie was crawling out from between the wheels of the train carriage.

  He bellowed a scream of frustrated rage, turned, and ran, hacking the crowbar down on the crawling zombie as he went by. There was no satisfaction in the crunch of bone.