by Frank Tayell
“There,” Jay said. “Done.”
His expression relaxed, but it didn’t change from the one he’d worn throughout the whole procedure. Nilda knew she’d remember that look of workmanlike sorrow to her dying day.
“Someone will need to sit with her,” Nilda said. “In case she turns.”
“I’ll do it,” Kevin said, slumping into a chair.
“I don’t think she will,” Jay said as he followed her mother out into the fresh air. “I think she’s been scratched before. That was back when we were in Kirkman House. She asked me about it, you see. About whether there was a way to tell whether someone was immune.”
“Well, all we can do now is wait and see. You did a good job,” Nilda said.
Jay just shrugged. “It’s all part of life now, isn’t it?”
“I know. I just wish it wasn’t that way.”
She looked around the castle. Activity hadn’t stopped, not entirely, but work had. People were milling around distracted, uncertain. The only sound of real labour was that of wood being split.
“That’s Chester,” Jay said, as if sensing his mother’s thoughts. “The wood, I mean. He said he didn’t need to be able to see to chop wood. I’m going to change,” he added.
Nilda watched her son walk off. Then she went into the wood store. Chester sat on an old high-backed chair, a hatchet in one hand, a small pile of splintered furniture to one side.
“Nilda?” he guessed.
“Hi, Chester.”
His shoulders relaxed. “I heard the screaming. Didn’t know who it was.”
“Yvonne. She lost half a hand.”
“That’s bad.”
“Jay cauterised the wound. Jay,” Nilda said. “Out of all of us, he knew best what to do, and only because he’d been through something similar with Stewart.”
“Someone knew what to do, that’s all that matters.”
“But…” She sighed. “Yes. I suppose. But what do we do if someone’s appendix bursts?”
“Or the sky falls on our heads,” Chester said. “How is Yvonne?”
“Alive. Unconscious. If she doesn’t die and become one of the undead then there’s just gangrene to worry about.”
“Jay said you were going to look for something to build a radio,” Chester said.
“No, a telegraph,” Nilda said, as she pulled a wooden chair off the pile and sat on it. “Yvonne had an idea we could rig one up and use the Shard as an antenna. Or build the antenna on the Shard. I’m not sure which it was.”
“A telegraph? That’s a new one. Or a very old one, I suppose. Could it actually work?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get to the Shard. There were too many undead.” She told him about the road with the ambulances, the restaurant, and then the hospital.
“But what about this telegraph?” he asked. “Can we do it?”
“I… I don’t know,” Nilda said. “I really don’t. She said something about copper and iron and a battery. But I haven’t a clue what she was planning to do with them.”
“Well, she’s alive, you’re back, and you’ve found somewhere with supplies. That’s not too bad for a day.”
“It’s not great. The telegraph it was… I don’t know if it would ever have worked. And there would have been no way of knowing it had until a boat turned up. If Eamonn is dead, this gave us something else to hold on to. And maybe that was all it was. I needed something to place my hope in.”
“Don’t trust to false hopes. That’s a recipe for disappointment.” Chester sighed, groped around, and grabbed a flat table top. His other hand searched around until he found a small saw. “It’s the cat in the box, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Us. The uncertainty principle. Can’t remember the guy’s name. The one who put the cat in a box with some poison. You don’t know if the cat’s alive or dead until the box is opened.”
“Heisenberg,” Nilda said.
“Him. Right. It’s not Anglesey inside the box; it’s us. We’re the cat, waiting to find out if we’ll live or die. Unless we know that help’s coming, we’ve got to assume we’re on our own. That’s what you were saying a week ago, right? And nothing’s changed, has it?”
“I don’t know. I mean… maybe I’ve changed. It’s…” It was hard to explain. “You should be resting,” she said instead.
“Not much point in that,” he said, beginning to slowly saw through the wood. Nilda looked again at the pile of wood by his feet. I was a very small pile. “Exercise is the only way I’ll get my strength back,” Chester continued. “And I’ve a feeling I’m going to need it. No sign of Tuck yet?”
“None. How’s your eyesight?”
“A bit better. It’s not much more than dark and shade, but I can see more shadows than I could this morning.”
“That’s good,” she said, and heard the words come out flat. “If you’re sure you’re okay, I should go and change.”
“I’m fine.”
Washed, she found her feet taking her back to the infirmary. There was work that needed to be done, but she couldn’t face the idea of company.
“I’ll watch her for a bit,” she said to Kevin.
“I don’t mind,” he said.
“The children will be upset. They’ll need comforting. That’s something else you should get some practice at.”
Alone, Nilda leaned back. Each time she thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Or perhaps it was that things stayed the same. People just kept dying. No matter how many undead they killed, there was always the chance the next one would get them. It felt like there was a death sentence hanging over each of them, and that life had become nothing more than waiting to see who death came for next. Despondent, she sat with Yvonne, her mind drifting back to the past and how much she missed her old, miserable life.
Around lunchtime, McInery came in.
“I heard what happened. How is she?”
“Her heart’s still beating,” Nilda said. “You’re back early.”
“I lost my water bottle,” McInery said. “But I found another military vehicle. There were some rations in the back, about the same amount as yesterday. No weapons though. I’m sure that’s significant. It means those soldiers must have been heading somewhere, not just trying to get away.”
“And that’s what you’ll look for next, is it?” Nilda asked. “You’re still on that quest?”
“No,” McInery said, sitting down on a chair on the other side of Yvonne. “I think I have found as much as I ever will. But wherever those soldiers were trying to reach, they probably didn’t make it. If I find the bodies, I find the rifles, and with those we can deal with Graham. You realise that Tuck is dead?”
“She might be. She might not,” Nilda said, not wanting to give McInery even the smallest satisfaction of agreeing with her. “What were you looking for in Westminster?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” McInery said.
“Don’t give me that,” Nilda snapped. “You were after something. Not rifles. Not ammo. It was something else. That’s why you went there, why Hana followed, and why she died. It’s why Chester’s blind, and I want to know. I have a right to know.”
“Perhaps,” McInery said. “Do you know who Cannock was?”
“Someone Chester grew up with.” Nilda said.
“And who grew up to be Quigley’s henchman. Or one of them. Because Chester knew him, he was my contact. He was the one who gave us the vaccine. Did Chester tell you about that?”
Nilda nodded.
“He wanted me to gather everyone I could and give them the vaccine so that there would be people he could rely on in London. It sounds so obviously a lie now, yet then… It was the undead that made me incautious. When your entire reality has been shattered, it’s hard to know what to be distrustful of. I asked Cannock why he wanted people in London. Why not just leave soldiers? Why want it to be garrisoned by… well, by criminals. Scum, you would call them. Call us.”
“And what did
he say?” Nilda asked.
“That for every plan there had to be a backup, and that you should prepare for even that to fail.”
“He must have said something more than that.”
“He did. He said that all of those plans had one goal. That once the dust had settled, there would still be a Britain left. Diminished, broken, but which could be fixed, and which would lead the world out of darkness.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I think so. He didn’t usually talk like that, and the way he said it, it was as if he was quoting someone. Quigley, I assume.”
“Or just quoting what Quigley told him to say if you asked questions.”
“Perhaps. And that’s what I thought at first, until Chester and I saw the government barricade. That’s when I began wondering whether there might not be a grain of truth in it.”
“What grain?” Nilda asked. “What precisely did you think he meant?”
“That there was a secret weapon that could get rid of the undead. Of course, that was before I knew how all this began. I assumed it was planned, that a super-soldier programme had gone wrong, or something equally fanciful. What else was I to think? But regardless of my theories, I had the evidence of the barricades. Why would they be built unless there was something to defend?” She raised her hands in a sign of defeat. “But now? Now I think the hotel was just where they garrisoned their soldiers. That the barricades were built to protect London because Quigley intended to run his new empire from here. If there was a secret weapon, it was the army stationed here, and if there was a plan, it was to use the soldiers to secure his hold on whoever, and wherever, else survived. It no longer matters, because regardless of what plans that man might have had for the city, knowing them won’t help us now. Without Hana we have no doctor, we have no vet. People and animals will get sick.” She nodded at Yvonne. “And all we can do is offer them company. It isn’t enough.”
“There’s not much else we can do,” Nilda said.
“Of course there is,” McInery said. “One of us needs to become the doctor. Books and practice, that’s all it takes. Or someone needs to try and get to Wales. At the very least, we need to find out whether Tuck killed Graham before she died. Ignorance has never been a shield against misfortune.”
“And you want to lead us, do you?” Nilda asked.
“Me? No. I always wanted this city to be mine. It almost was. We might cling here on the edge, but London is gone. It will never be rebuilt. No, out there, wandering the empty streets is as much as I want.”
“You’re a changed woman, are you? You’ve seen the light and repented of your sins? I find that hard to believe.”
“Repentance is for the weak. Regrets are for the weak-minded. No, believe me, this is all I want. At least for now. In Wales, in years to come, perhaps I will think differently, but there is a long road ahead before power will come with trappings of luxury. Here and now I can see myself lying in a deathbed like this with nothing but prayer to aid my recovery.”
“It’s not a deathbed,” Nilda said. “She will recover.”
“I don’t think so,” McInery said. “Not without amputating the hand.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Of course I am. I have a lot more experience than you with those who’ve had tragic accidents, and yes, sometimes I was there when they had the accident. The hand has to be removed. It will never work again. Too much of the muscle has been lost.”
“No. I doubt it would help.”
“How do you know it won’t? You don’t. You can’t. That was my point. In my other life, I sat with a lot of the dying. Did Chester tell you about that? My philanthropy might have been a cover, but it was real just the same. She is dying; I promise you that. Amputation might do no good, but at this point it can’t do any harm. As I said, I have no interest in leadership, so it is something for you to think about. So you go and do that, and I’ll stay with her. It won’t be the first deathbed at which I’ve sat.”
Nilda found her feet taking her back to the wood store. Chester was still methodically sawing away at a shelving unit.
“You should take a break,” she said.
“When I finish this. Any change in Yvonne?”
“It’s impossible to say until tomorrow or the day after. McInery’s with her now.”
“She is?”
“She suggested we amputate the hand. I suppose it’s worth trying if it’s infected.”
“And is it infected?” Chester asked.
“I’ve no idea. I can look through those books, but how will I really know? That was the point McInery was making. It’s just shone a spotlight into the depths of my own ignorance.”
“Well, let’s say you did cut off her hand, and then she recovers. How would you know she wouldn’t have got better regardless?”
“And that’s the real problem,” Nilda said. “Amputation would become our go-to treatment. We’d try it when all else failed, and the next generation would try it before anything else. If there is a next generation. I mean, what chance is there of that actually happening?”
“You’re tired,” Chester said. “And you’ve had one hell of a morning. I’d say leave the hand alone. Yvonne will recover or she won’t. You’ve done all you can. Now, people need to see you out and doing things. I can hear the chatter, and I can’t hear much else. Is nobody working?”
“Not really. They’re more milling about than anything else.”
“Well, life has to go on. For all of us.”
Nilda didn’t feel like doing anything, and had the enthusiasm for less, but Chester was right. She went outside, saw Xiao, and grabbed his arm.
“In twenty minutes I’m going to start clearing out the office block,” she said. “Pass the word.”
Not everyone in the Tower came out to help, but a lot did. After a while, Nilda fell into the rhythm of work. With the roads now blocked, the undead could be ignored if not forgotten. They’d only emptied a few of the downstairs meeting rooms, but after an afternoon of carrying tables and chairs down across the piazza, she felt pleasantly tired.
She made a point of not looking in on Yvonne until dusk called a halt to their lacklustre efforts.
“Did you decide about her hand?” McInery asked.
“We won’t amputate. Not unless we have to,” Nilda said.
“And how will you know before it’s too late? But it’s your decision. I’ve crushed up the painkillers. They’re over there. I think there’s enough to keep her sedated for eight or nine hours but not much longer.”
“There were some painkillers in the hospital,” Nilda said. “I assume they’ll still be potent.”
“Do you remember the names?” McInery asked.
“No.”
“Then tomorrow we’ll go back there, together.”
“How would you…?” Nilda began. “Oh. Of course.”
“My past experiences do have some use,” McInery said. “Tomorrow at dawn.”
30th September
Nilda opened her eyes, uncertain what had woken her. Her small room was dark. She stretched out a hand, and found the box of matches. She lit one and was blinded by the sudden burst of light. By the second match, she read the time. Four a.m. It was the worst time to be awake. Too late to be called night, too early to be called morning. She knew she wasn’t going to get back to sleep, so she got up and went outside. The cold night air was bracing as she walked across the courtyard, just listening to the night. It was all quiet, and dark except for the light in the infirmary. She found herself walking towards it. Styles sat by Yvonne’s beside, a book held close to a stubby candle.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said.
“I could, but the children couldn’t. I was sitting up with some of them until long after midnight. By the time they did get to sleep, I figured that since I was awake, there was no reason for Fogerty to be as well. And it was a good thing I took over from him. The man couldn’t keep his eyes op
en.”
“I suppose it’s easy to forget how old he is,” Nilda said.
“Which would have made it our fault if she’d turned and attacked him,” Styles said.
“But it’s been over fifteen hours,” Nilda said. “She’s not going to.”
“Probably not. I’d say she was looking better, but what do I know? Anyway, only one of us needs to be up. You might as well go back to bed. McInery’s scheduled to take over at half-past. She said she’d do a few hours before heading out into London.”
Nilda nodded and left. She tried walking around the courtyard, trying to take pleasure in the silence, but the cold crept in, and she started to shiver. Soon she found herself back in her room. It was dark and uninviting, but there was nowhere else to go. She lay down in bed, her eyes on the window, watching for the dawn. Unexpectedly, she fell asleep.
It was light when she opened her eyes, eight-thirty when she checked the time. Outside was filled with the sound of quiet industry. She got dressed, telling herself it was a new day full of new possibilities, and tried to believe it.
She’d made it ten steps from her door when she spotted Fogerty walking towards her. From the stoop of his shoulders she could tell it wasn’t good news.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Yvonne died,” he said.
“How? I thought she was getting better.”
“So did I,” he said. “Maybe it was an infection.”
“But we were being so careful about keeping things clean.”
“Well, what do any of us really know? You should tell people,” he said.
Nilda nodded, and looked around. Many people were already up, and in the faces of children and adults alike, she saw that they had already guessed.
An hour later when she went into the wood store she found Chester there, dismantling a plyboard cabinet.
“Nilda?”
“You heard the news?”
“You mean about Yvonne. Yes. I did.”
“I just told everyone in the dining hall, but most people had already guessed. She died, and that’s all we can say. I suppose we could add that she died from her injuries, but that’s adding words without detail. Not that it matters. It’s not like we need to worry about death certificates.” She began moving wood out of the way.