by Frank Tayell
“How much food do you have in that vault?”
“It’s not just food,” she said. “Ammunition and guns, tools and clothing, and all the supplies to last ten people for ten years. Or it should have been ten years. Half was gone when I arrived.”
“Why do you have a vault of ammunition and food in Birmingham?” Greta asked.
“Because we were preparing for the end of the world,” she said.
Yes, each answer only begged a dozen more questions. Ten people for ten years, though with half of it gone, it would resupply London for six months. Spread across all the survivors now heading to Belfast, it would last a couple of days. Did that make it a priceless treasure, or did it make it a worthless albatross that had only brought more death into the world?
“What do you think, Chester?” Greta asked.
“How many ways in are there?” Chester asked.
“Just the front entrance,” Locke said. “That’s why I moved the bus there. The vehicle’s windows are sealed with wood and cement.”
“What about the roof? Is there a skylight or something?”
“No,” she said. “I designed it like a castle. A few can hold off an assault by dozens.”
“Do you know where Eamonn and Isabella are being held?” Chester asked.
“No.”
“Why should we believe Eamonn’s in there?” Greta asked.
“Why would I lie?” Locke said.
Greta frowned, seeming to weigh the woman’s words. She gave a decisive nod. “Chester, can we rescue them?”
“If Tuck was here,” Chester said, “I might say yes. Set a thief to catch a thief, but these aren’t thieves, and this isn’t London. I did some work in the city, sure, but it’s not my stomping ground. Thirteen soldiers? Even without much ammo they’re still soldiers.” He turned to Locke. “If the food is locked in the vault, how are they still alive?”
“We’d carried some upstairs before they arrived,” Locke said. “They brought some with them. I don’t know how much food they have left, but their stock of water must be running low, despite last night’s rain.”
“Chester?” Greta prompted. “We’re not walking away. We have to get Eamonn.”
“I know,” he said. He scratched his scar. “We’ve run out of time.”
Greta hadn’t seen it. The possibility that her beloved was still alive was blinding her to the obvious. Whoever these people were, whether they were Quigley’s soldiers or renegades from elsewhere, they would have made Eamonn talk, and he would have told them about London. If the renegades had come from Northumberland, they would have assumed the old capital had been destroyed. Now they knew it was whole.
If Locke was to be believed, she’d killed seventeen of the soldiers. By now, the remaining thirteen would be eager to leave. Once they did, London was their only possible destination. Eamonn had been unlucky to have taken so long to reach Birmingham. They couldn’t trust that a similar misfortune would delay these renegades. They could be in London in four days, perhaps sooner, but certainly before any help could arrive in a sailing boat from Anglesey.
Once again, the Tower would be under siege. This time, it would have to be abandoned. Even then, it wouldn’t be over. The thirteen renegades would have Quigley’s remaining supplies. They would have the Tower and all the gear that Chester, Nilda and the others had collected. The renegades would be safe, secure against anything but a horde. They stood a good chance of outlasting the undead. There might only be a few hundred other survivors in the British wasteland, but once the zombies died, they would go to the capital. People from France, Belgium, and further afield might try to do the same. They would find the renegades and have no choice but to join their ranks. A new evil empire would be created, an echo of all that Quigley had wanted, and it would be a very real threat to all future generations. Fight them today, then, because the alternative was leaving them for the children to fight tomorrow, and that was a worse legacy than a land of the undead.
Chester took out the sat-phone. “Set a thief to catch a thief, but these are soldiers, so I think it’s time we got some professional help.”
Chapter 22 - Bran’s New Recruits
Rossett, Wales
Bran pulled the trigger, but the hammer found an empty chamber. He slammed the rifle-butt into the zombie’s face, then swept his leg low, knocking the creature from its feet. He stepped back and ejected the spent magazine, loading in a new one while the zombie thrashed to its knees. Before Bran could fire, an arrow sprouted from the creature’s eye. Bran could guess who’d fired it, but didn’t check. Instead, he scanned the rest of the battlefield.
Dermot was on the ground, a zombie on top of him. He’d managed to get his machete lodged so the flat of the blade pushed against its throat, and that was holding the creature back, but only just. As its hands clawed and its legs kicked, the zombie’s mouth inched closer and closer to the fallen man. Dermot screamed, in fear not pain, but the zombie’s head was now too close. Bran didn’t dare risk the shot. He let the rifle fall to its sling as he dashed across the intervening ten yards. He grabbed the creature’s rotting leather jacket. The cloth tore, but Bran dragged the zombie from the recruit. He hurled the creature to the ground, and drew his bayonet as he leaped onto the zombie. Pinning the creature’s flailing arms beneath his knees, he slammed the blade down into its eye. As he sprung back to his feet, his hand had already grabbed the gun’s stock. He brought his weapon up as he scanned the car park and saw that the only movement was from the living.
From her perch on the low roof, Lena gave a whistle. Bran waited for her to signal the all-clear. She didn’t, but she did lower her bow.
“We’re fine,” Dean called out. There was a chorus of muted agreement from the rest of the squad.
Bran bit back an automatic reproachful command. His volunteers weren’t soldiers, not yet. He’d spent many an evening discussing that with Dr Umbert. The psychiatrist had been one of the few people in whom Bran had felt comfortable confiding. In some ways, it was because they agreed on so little, but they had reached common ground on one thing. The survivors weren’t soldiers. He wasn’t sure if this group would ever become them.
“Lena reckons we’re clear for half a mile around,” Dean said, sauntering over.
“What do you think?” Bran asked as he retrieved his bayonet.
“I always trust her,” Dean said. “She’s got eyes like an eagle.”
“Trust is good,” Bran said. “You need that, but not blind trust. The brain’s an odd thing. Sometimes it can miss what’s right in front of it. What’s your opinion?”
Dean frowned. He looked up and down the road that led to the agricultural supply business, and then at the fields either side. “I think we should hurry,” he said.
“Good. Take Akeem, Dermot, and Patricia to check that warehouse. You know what we’re looking for?”
“Fertilizer and hand tools,” Dean said. “We take photos of everything we find.”
“Good,” Bran said. “You’ve got five minutes.”
No, they weren’t soldiers. Not yet, and most of them never would be, but Dean and Lena both had the makings of it. Partly it was their age, and partly it was that they’d spent the last eight months in the harshest of training grounds. Fighting their way up and down Ireland had forged them into something far tougher than the survivors who’d spent those months on their ships. But, like he and Dr Umbert had often discussed, fighters weren’t soldiers.
“Andy, Jane, Rashad, you’re with me,” he said. He glanced up at Lena who was watching the road and the fields beyond. She’d warn them if danger came. Yes, he could trust her. He’d have to.
Silently, he signalled for Rashad to open the door and then step back for Jane and Andy to enter, flanking left and right while he took the centre. Their blank expressions told him they hadn’t understood. He held up three fingers, then two, then one, and then opened the door. The warehouse was empty, at least of the undead. The shelves had been untouched for months. Bran shone his torc
h on a row of oddly shaped scissors he assumed were wool-shears. Next to that was a rack of wide-toothed combs. Against the left wall was a rack of plastic buckets, troughs, and oddly square ramps next to a wide selection of plastic tubing.
“I think it’s all gear for livestock,” he said. “It’s mostly plastic and metal. It’ll last a few years. Maybe, by then, we’ll have a use for it. You’ve got those phones? Take photographs of everything. You’ve got five minutes. If you get your thumb over the lens, you’ll be coming back here on foot and alone. Move!”
Leaving them fumbling in their pockets for their phones, he went back outside.
There was a third building on the site, a two-storey cottage with plastic furniture outside, a closed sign on the glass front door, but an assortment of child’s stickers on one of the upstairs windows. It was a home for the owners, but also a small cafe and shop. They probably made as much profit serving tea and coffee to local farmers who stopped for a chat as they did selling farm supplies.
He looked up at Lena. She was watching the road. Yes, she and Dean would make good soldiers, eventually. The others wouldn’t. Perhaps that was for the best. Bran had noticed something that no one else had. Something that no one else could. This was his second trip into Wales in as many weeks, but he’d been through the area a month before, and again a month before that. What he was sure of was that there were fewer undead. There were still the odd two or ten gathered inside the walls and fences ringing the rural properties, but there were virtually none on the roads or in the fields. He’d counted a grand total of two since they’d left the pottery that morning, and none between the boat and that odd little commune. Even accounting for the creatures he’d killed on his previous trips, there were fewer than he was expecting. He wasn’t going to share that with anyone.
As far as he was concerned, not seeing many zombies only meant he’d not seen many zombies. It didn’t necessarily mean that they’d all died, their bodies now rotting in some ditch, covered by leaves and mud where they would never be discovered. No, it didn’t necessarily mean that, but it might. It might mean that, once winter was over, they’d find spring’s first dawn shone on a land full of green shoots and empty of unnatural decay. It might mean there was nothing to fight but nature and themselves. The elements couldn’t be fought with rifle and bayonet, and there were too few people for them to war among themselves. No, hopefully, maybe, possibly, there’d be no need for soldiers in the future.
He smiled. That was a sentiment that had echoed through the ages and had always been proved wrong. Besides, first they had to get through the winter. Everything had changed on Anglesey. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The election had been as disastrous as any political contest in the old-world. That calamity had swiftly been forgotten with the news of the power plant’s imminent demise. Ireland was to become their temporary home. Whether it would become a permanent one, he didn’t know, but it wouldn’t be his. Britain was his home, and if the undead were dying, then he would return. Perhaps he’d return anyway, if only to hasten their end, one zombie at a time.
He crossed to the small house. The front door was intact. He went around to the back. The door was open. He raised the rifle, pushing the door inward. He didn’t expect to find any undead inside, and he wasn’t disappointed, but there were bodies. Probably three. They’d been torn apart, their remains feasted on by whatever wildlife had avoided the undead. He rapped the silenced rifle barrel against the battered water-heater. There was no reply. That wasn’t good enough, though. Not for him. He checked the small cafe and convenience store downstairs, and then the bedrooms upstairs. A couple and a child had lived there, but he left their belongings to the ghosts and returned outside.
Dean’s group had finished and were gathered near the road. The young man had found a shepherd’s crook with which he was jabbing and waving, demonstrating how he’d use it to fight the undead. Bran gestured that they should assist those in the other warehouse.
They’d come ashore on the River Dee, not too far from where he’d made landfall when he’d gone looking for the brigadier. Chester had been with him then. Bran smiled a grin of genuine relief. The thief was still alive. That was the first piece of good news they’d had in a long while. A hundred survivors had taken over the Tower of London. They’d also provided an idea so obvious he was embarrassed he’d not thought of it himself. The fold-up bicycles were lined up on the road outside. Thanks to the scant few undead, they’d not had to take to the fields on this exploratory mission, not yet. Knowing that, if they did, they wouldn’t be making the rest of the journey on foot had given his recruits confidence.
On leaving the boat, they’d gone to the potters’ commune and found it mostly intact. After taking photographs, they’d come here to the agricultural supply business. Bran had remembered seeing it on one of his previous journeys. He’d been hoping to find fertilizer or seeds, but not every mission was going to be a success. Touch wood, everyone who set out was going to make it home alive. That was success enough.
He took out the sat-phone to report their position and saw there was a blinking light. He’d missed a call. He redialled.
“Hello?” a young voice answered.
“Is that Annette? It’s Bran. I’m reporting in. Is anyone else there?”
“They’re in a meeting. Hang on.”
He heard a chair being pushed back, footsteps on bare wood, a door opening, and a sudden hush.
“It’s Bran,” Annette said.
“I’ll take it,” Bill said. “Bran? Are you in Wrexham?”
“A little to the south of Rossett,” Bran said. “An agricultural supply warehouse. There are some tools, some—”
“Okay, listen, there’s been a change in plans,” Bill cut in. “There are survivors in Birmingham, and some of them are being held hostage.”
“Hostage?” Bran asked. “Held by whom?”
“This is where it gets complicated,” Bill said. “Does the name Sorcha Locke mean anything to you?”
“You wrote about her. She was in Elysium, wasn’t she? Worked for Kempton, made it to Anglesey. Didn’t Rachel kill her?”
“Apparently not,” Bill said. “We know Kempton had redoubts and refuges dotted across the world, there for her people to use when the apocalypse happened. One of those redoubts is in Birmingham. Locke, on escaping from Bishop, went there. That must have been in the early summer, and she found other survivors in the city. Civilians all, from what I gather. The supplies are locked in a vault to which she alone has the code. Around the beginning of September, some soldiers arrived. They took over her warehouse and captured some of the civilians.”
“And they’re the hostages?” Bran asked.
“Right. The soldiers want the code for the vault. Locke won’t give it to them, since she thinks, once they have it, they’ll kill the hostages.”
“Probably. How reliable is this information?”
“Chester Carson told it to us,” Bill said. “He was looking for one of his people who left London a couple of months ago in search of help. That man, Eamonn, is one of the hostages.”
“Chester? That’s interesting,” Bran said. “So how many hostages, how many soldiers?”
“Thirteen soldiers, two hostages. Eamonn, and Isabella, she’s from Birmingham. That’s the next complication. Isabella has an infant daughter, born just before the outbreak. The infant is the reason they didn’t leave the city. There’s an old woman and three other children, two ten-year-olds and a twelve-year-old. They’re still in the city. They’re safe, for now, guarded by Locke.”
“Anything else?” Bran asked.
“Chester doesn’t know who Locke is,” Bill said. “George mustn’t have said, and I didn’t want to risk telling him. The soldiers in the warehouse are possibly the last of Quigley’s praetorian guard. Locke seems to think so, and the timeline fits with the destruction of Caulfield Hall. The warehouse that they’re in was built like a fortress. They killed the team we sent to investigate the city,
and they took their weapons.”
“So thirteen of Quigley’s renegades have a fortress, two hostages, and are sitting on enough weapons and supplies to fight a war. There’s one old woman, three young children and one infant trapped in the city, currently being protected by a woman we know had a hand in the apocalypse. Sounds like a hard choice. What do you want me to do?”
There was a moment’s pause. “Go to Birmingham,” Bill said. “Find out how much, if any, of that is true. We can’t let Quigley’s people run loose in England, nor can they get access to those supplies. Chester said there was enough for ten people for five years. It won’t make much difference to us, but it would be enough to let these people become warrior-barons.”
Bran looked over at his recruits. He’d served with the best of the best, but Quigley recruited the worst of the worst. These civilians would be no match for them.
“Where’re the French?” he asked.
“In the North Sea,” Bill said. “There were four ships drifting towards Belfast, full of the undead. The Marines are in the Shannon Estuary. The Vehement is towing the Harper’s Ferry towards Elysium with some of the British submariners and American sailors. The rest, not counting those we can’t afford to risk, are in Belfast. I’ll need about seventy-two hours to get them back here, and then we can send them in on the helicopter. So, go to Birmingham, take a look at this place, and…” There was another pause. “Find out how much of it is true, and whether we can rescue the hostages. If not…” Another pause. “If not,” Bill finished wearily, “we’ll have to destroy this warehouse.”
“I understand,” Bran said. “And Locke?”
“Just because Rachel and Bishop tried to kill her doesn’t mean we can trust her,” Bill said. This time, the hard order now given, he sounded more certain. “But there are some questions we’d like answers to. Getting those children out of Birmingham is the priority, then rescuing the hostages and stopping those soldiers. Locke is last. A distant last.”
“When did Chester call you?” Bran asked.