Surviving the Evacuation 11: Search and Rescue

by Frank Tayell

  “So you don’t need to be resupplied?” George said. “That is good news. We can focus our efforts on moving people from Anglesey.”

  “If you’re not staying in Ireland, where are you going?” Nilda asked.

  “We’re not sure,” George said. “If the undead die, then everything might change. At present, the focus is on leaving Anglesey. Once that’s done, the admiral is going to take a ship across the Atlantic. She’ll head for Newfoundland, and then follow the coast down to North Carolina. Perhaps she’ll find an empty island, perhaps she won’t. She feels she has a duty to take her crew home one last time. I can understand that, and even if the expedition is a failure, it will mean no one else will risk a dangerous transatlantic voyage in search of a haven that doesn’t exist. Depending on how long that takes, and what other ships we find, we’ll send an expedition to the Mediterranean, perhaps another to the Baltic. That’s as far ahead as we’ve planned.” He smiled. “I don’t want to give the wrong impression. It’s not as gloomy as it sounds. Because of the nuclear power plant, we knew we’d have to leave Anglesey one day. That day arrived sooner than we thought. Things might become a little uncomfortable in Belfast over the next few months, but we’ve all been through worse. We do have the satellites, though we’ll have to be cautious about their use. There are enough seeds for a proper planting as long as we choose the right patch of soil. We still have the oil for the large ships, and now we’ve found you.” He gestured at the door beyond which came the sound of children laughing at another one of Lorraine’s impossibly tall tales. “That is a wonderful sound. Times are going to be tough, but not as tough as they were. There is hard work ahead, but there is hope, too.”

  “It’s a lot to think about,” Nilda said.

  “Of course,” George said. He rose stiffly to his feet. “We’ll talk again in the morning. If you don’t mind, I’ll have a word with those children. I think I have a story or two that will beat any Lorraine has to share, and ones after which they might find it easier to get to sleep.”

  “So Rob’s dead,” Nilda said, after George had left.

  “Did you know that Bishop guy?” Jay asked.

  “I can’t put a face to the name,” Chester said. “I think I could pick Rachel Gottlieb out of a line-up, but maybe not.”

  “We’ll have to see what Kevin and Aisha have learned from the sailors,” Nilda said. “I expect it’s the same as George told us. I can’t imagine any of that was a lie.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Jay asked.

  “Easy,” Tuck signed. “Trade some of our supplies for sailing boats, plan for a retreat but prepare for a defence. We have to hold the Tower against the undead, and against the weather. We’ve lost our safety net, and that’s all Anglesey was. It was an idea of safety. We knew that already, didn’t we?”

  “It’s not the news I was hoping from Anglesey,” Chester said.

  “But it’s not what I feared,” Nilda said.

  “It is what it is,” Tuck signed. “It’s getting late. It’s time the children were in bed.” The soldier eased herself to her feet. She was on the road to recovery, but still moved stiffly, relying on her cane as she left the room. Jay followed, leaving Chester and Nilda alone.

  “Some honeymoon for Aisha and Kevin,” Chester said.

  “The wedding seems so long ago,” Nilda said. “How quickly things can change.”

  “How indeed,” Chester said. “It’s a lot to think about. I suppose we’ve been here before. We have a few months of grace and then a lifetime of uncertainty ahead of us.”

  “I think… no,” Nilda said.

  “What?” Chester asked.

  “It’s this guy, Bishop. It’s Rob. It’s that woman, Rachel. There will be others like that. People who didn’t like the idea of living in Anglesey, and who like the idea of Ireland less. This would be a logical place for them to come. We don’t want them, but how do we know who the dangerous people are if Mr Tull doesn’t?”

  “One more thing to worry about, and there’s always going to be another.”

  “Isn’t there just,” Nilda said. She sighed. “The wedding really does seem like a long time ago. I’m going to give Tuck a hand getting the children into bed. I doubt they’ll stay there, not tonight, but we should at least try to maintain their normal routine.”

  “I’ll catch up with you in a bit,” Chester said. He slipped out through the back door, and went up to the walls, pausing at the same spot he’d stood with Nilda a few hours before. In recent weeks, he’d had many different visions of their future. He’d imagined they’d take a house on Anglesey, or stay all together in their own small village, or they’d stay in London, reclaiming the city one building at a time. The idea that his imagination often returned to, but which he rarely dared believe, was that the undead would die, and there would be no limit to the possibilities ahead of them. Yes, he’d had many different visions of the future, but all were anchored around Anglesey and the society that was developing there.

  He could hear the children excitedly chatter through the castle’s thick walls. The carrying sound didn’t matter. They’d pushed the undead back for nearly a quarter-mile in every direction. Except across the river, of course. He turned to stare south at the bulk of the museum ship, HMS Belfast, and the city beyond. A city where he’d grown up, a city he’d left, a city to which he’d returned and, finally, found love, life, and a future. He’d thought he’d found a future.

  “You’re getting maudlin,” he muttered. “And it’s getting cold.”

  He pulled his collar up, and made his way back to the stairs. As he did, he saw that a light was on in the Keep.

  It was Greta. She was loading a magazine with ammunition.

  “Can’t sleep?” he asked.

  She looked up. “Haven’t tried,” she said. She returned to loading the magazine. There were six already next to her.

  “You’re going to look for Eamonn,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “If it was Nilda who’d left, wouldn’t you search for her?” Greta asked. “Didn’t you go with her to look for Jay?”

  “Of course,” Chester said, “but this is different.”

  “Because it’s me, not you?”

  “Because it’s been nearly two months since Eamonn left, and we know he didn’t get to Anglesey,” Chester said. “He took the maps with him, the ones that marked the areas to avoid.”

  “If he used them, he’s dead,” Greta said. “Even if he didn’t, he still might be dead in a million different ways, but there’s still a chance he might be alive.”

  “Then why didn’t he reach Anglesey?” Chester asked.

  “He got lost. He got injured. Both. I could construct a thousand different narratives,” she said, placing the loaded magazine on the table. “Any one of them might be true, but they’re only stories and I find no comfort in them. He didn’t make it to Anglesey. He probably is dead. No, he almost certainly is dead, but I have to look for him because I know he would look for me.”

  “Fair enough,” Chester said. “You’re leaving tonight?”

  “I’m not Eamonn,” she said with what was almost a smile. “I need to properly prepare. I’ll leave at dawn.”

  “I’ll get my gear ready,” he said.

  “You’re coming, too? No, you have to stay.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “What’s there to do here? I don’t know how much you’ve heard about Anglesey—”

  “They’re all going to Ireland,” Greta said.

  “Which means we’re not leaving the Tower,” Chester said. “For now, we’ll keep on doing what we’ve been doing, and Nilda doesn’t need my help with that. I’ve walked the wasteland before, and it should have been me who set out for Anglesey, not Eamonn. Looking for him is the least I can do.”

  “I won’t try to talk you out of it,” Nilda said, when Chester told her of Greta’s decision to leave and his to go with her.

  “Which is a nice way of getting me to think of all the objec
tions you might make,” Chester said. He sat on the edge of the small bed in their small room. The two candles flickered in the wintry draft edging its way under the door. Their dim light cast odd shadows on the drawings made by the some of the younger children, and which they’d pinned to the wall. “Someone has to go with her,” he said, “if only to make sure that she gives up the search. Otherwise she’ll wander the countryside until she dies.”

  “I know,” she said, “but still, I wish it wasn’t you.”

  “Who else could go? Tuck can’t, nor can Aisha. You’re needed here, and we can’t send Kevin or Jay. No, it has to be me.”

  “How long will you look before you give up?” she asked.

  “A week,” Chester said. “I’ll have a word with George, find out which safe houses might still have some food in them. We’ll go from one to the next, and see if we can get picked up somewhere on the Welsh coast. I’ll take one of the sat-phones so I can stay in touch. If we get into real difficulty, they’ve got a helicopter now. That can pick us up. You don’t need to worry, I’ve done this before.”

  “When you could properly see, when you could properly hear,” she said. “Of course I’m going to worry.”

  Chester rubbed his scar. “Eamonn shouldn’t have gone. It should have been me. A few hours ago, before that ship arrived, it was different. Greta wasn’t leaving to search for Eamonn, but to reach Anglesey. When she got there, having found no trace of him, she’d have accepted that he was dead. Instead, now, there’ll be no end to her journey. I remember—” He stopped.

  “What?”

  “Do you remember the journey to Penrith?” he asked. “Before we got there, before we found the note that Jay left in your old home?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “I do. I remember what you were like. Driven, yes, but purposeless. You were going back to bury your son. Do you know why I went with you?”

  “Because you wanted to get to Hull. It was on the way,” she said.

  “I went to make sure that you gave up the search,” Chester said. “I thought Jay was dead and that, when you saw Penrith again, you’d accept it. After we found that note you became possessed. You would have kept looking for Jay in London and then beyond. Nothing would have stopped you.”

  She sat down next to him. “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “If he’d been dead, or undead, you would never have found his body,” Chester said. “We won’t find Eamonn, but we can’t stop Greta from searching. If I’m with her, then in a week’s time, when we’re out of food and running low on ammunition, I might be able to persuade her to give up so as not to risk my life. If she’s on her own, she’ll continue looking until she finds death. Both of us know that she won’t have to look very hard or for very long.”

  “One week,” Nilda said. “Then make sure that both of you come home.” She stood. “You’ll need warm clothes. It might still be autumn, but winter is on its way.”

  Chapter 18 - The Journey North

  Cuddington, 11th November, Day 243

  “Assuming that’s the Royal Train,” Chester said, gesturing at the row of black carriages ahead of them, “then we’re exactly where we want to be.”

  “There are zombies,” Greta said. “Five of them close to the rear carriage.” She slowed the bike, and then brought it to a stop next to an old concrete signal box. “We’re not the first to come here,” she added as she dismounted. In the weeds next to the derelict building was a bicycle. A bag still hung from the crossbar. “That’s really the Royal Train?”

  “I think so. Or I hope so,” Chester said. “According to George, there should be a safe house about half a mile further along the tracks. Bran said he chose the spot because anyone coming this far would spend some time looking at the carriages.”

  “I suppose they would,” Greta said, unslinging the submachine gun. It was a suppressed MP5AK from the store of weapons Quigley had left in London. Chester carried one himself, but left it on his shoulder as he squinted ahead.

  “Can you see the zombies?” Greta asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Are you lying?”

  “No, I can make out the shape, their outline. There are fallen branches on the rails. It looks like the hedgerow was torn apart. They must have come from across that field.” He could see their outline, but he was unable to pick out any detail.

  “I make it about three hundred metres,” Greta said. She kicked gravel from the sleeper, knelt, and took aim.

  Chester looked back along the tracks, then at the hills either side. It was all a vague blur. He lifted his hat, and rubbed at the scar. Physically, he was as fit as he’d been before he’d been shot. At least, that’s what he told himself. His knees were pulsating after a long day’s cycling, his feet felt like they wanted to burst out of his boots, and the skin on his hands was weirdly tight. Life in London was hard, and not a day went by that he didn’t go to bed exhausted. There was always wood to chop, water to be collected and boiled, clothes to be washed, and the undead to be kept behind the increasingly complex barriers they had in the streets ringing the castle. What there wasn’t, but which this trip had in abundance, was the constant tension of the undead about to spring at them from behind every tree or bend in the road.

  He peered at the carriages. If that was the Royal Train, then they were near the village of Cuddington, about five miles west of Aylesbury, forty miles northwest of London. The safe house should be somewhere in the hills ahead. Even if it had been overrun in the months since Bran had set it up, they’d find somewhere else to shelter, though they’d have to find it soon. The clouds hadn’t opened during the day and the wind had dropped, but the temperature hadn’t risen. Night was approaching, and it would be another cold one.

  Greta fired.

  “Good shot,” Chester said.

  “I missed,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  They’d left the Tower at dawn, and had taken two hours to travel the six miles to Hampstead. That was good time compared to the occasional excursion he, Jay, and Kevin made into the ruined capital. The rest of the journey had been much faster, at least when they’d been moving in the right direction. Dense packs of the undead had forced them off the railway lines twice, and so Chester was only seventy percent certain they were now in the correct place. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t. One place was as good as another to begin their search for Eamonn, since wherever they began, it was unlikely they’d ever find him.

  Greta fired again. “Got it,” she said. “Four left. Can’t see any more.” She shifted aim, and fired.

  Chester finally put aside his pride and took out the binoculars. Three creatures slowly slouched towards them. Covered in mud with branches and leaves stuck to their coats, they almost looked like they wore camouflage.

  Greta fired again. “Got it. Two left. A hundred and fifty metres.”

  Chester’s hand went to the mace at his belt. The steel head was an antique that verged on artefact, but the shaft was a cut-down shovel-handle wrapped with surgical tape. There was no need to draw it, not yet.

  Greta fired again, and there was only one zombie left. Another shot, followed by a muted curse, and then one more.

  “It’s done,” Greta said.

  “Good job,” Chester said, lowering the binoculars.

  “I was slower than I should have been,” Greta said.

  “It’s the wind-chill,” Chester said. He picked up his fold-up bike. “The safe house is ahead. We’ll rest there.”

  The fold-up bikes had been an answer staring them in the face. On the journey from Hull, they’d been frequently forced off the road and into the sodden quagmires that had once been fields. During the mad dash through Kent, those fields had more than frequently been washed into the road, turning the smooth surface into a sticky morass. While carrying bicycles through the gluey mud, they were no faster than the undead. The fold-up bikes favoured by London’s commuters were the obvious solution. The smaller wheels reduced their maximum
speed, but it took only a matter of seconds to collapse the entire bike into a package that could be hauled, one-handed, at quick clip across a field. On balance, they were close to the ideal apocalyptic transport. They wheeled them up the train tracks, and around one undead corpse and then the next. Chester gave them barely a glance.

  “These ones weren’t dying,” he said. “Nor were those that forced us off the road earlier. Makes me wonder whether the creatures in London are the exception.”

  “Hmm? What? No,” Greta said, Chester’s words finally cutting through her fog of concern. “No, they’ve seen some die on Anglesey. Not on Anglesey, but in Wales and Ireland. Didn’t you hear? I was speaking to the sailors from that boat.”

  “Ah. George said they’ve got one confirmed case, and about two hundred possibles. I suppose we’ll know, one way or another, before spring. That does look like a crown, don’t you think?”

  Greta peered at the golden badge stamped to the carriage’s side. “It’s covered in grime, but I think that matches the crests they have in the Tower. What did Bran say about this?”

  “George did,” Chester said. “He said that Bran had set up a safe house a little way up the tracks, but there should be a map and some supplies inside the train.”

  He rapped his fist against the nearest window and heard no sound in reply, but he trusted his hearing no more than his eyesight. The glass was tinted and covered in dirt.

  “Can’t see anything,” he said. “Let’s try the door. You ready?”

  They moved their bikes a little way down the tracks in case a quick escape was needed. With Greta’s gun aimed at the door, Chester pulled it aside. No one, and no undead, were inside the train.

  “I have to say, I’m not impressed,” Chester said. “This doesn’t look much different to the first class on an intercity service. Maybe this carriage is for the staff.”