by Frank Tayell
“What a world,” he murmured.
Dawn added a soft glow to the dark streets as they walked out onto the road. There was an expectant air to the dark houses as if people were already awake but putting off facing the horrific reality around them.
“You were a detective in Florida,” Tom said to fill the silence. “Is that why Martha came all the way up here?”
“There’s no short answer to that question,” Jonas said. “But I didn’t want to exchange pleasantries. Do you know of any reason things might get better than this?”
Tom took in the dark streetlights, the parked cars gathering dust, the wood and metal barrier blocking off an alley between two silent stores. The flickering candle in the window of the restaurant gave him the answer. “I don’t see any reason they should get any worse.”
“The radiation. That’s the reason things will get worse,” Jonas said. “Los Angeles and Houston are far away, but the Canadian border isn’t. You don’t know where that bomb was dropped?”
“No,” Tom said. “I should have asked them, but I was so grateful to find people who were alive that most questions slipped my mind.”
“What about elsewhere? Other countries?”
“I’ve no idea,” Tom said. “I’m reasonably certain that Addison wanted our missiles to fire, but whether they did, or what targets were hit, I don’t know. If Helena’s still got my sat-phone and tablet, I might be able to find out.”
“What I’m asking is whether there’s somewhere out there in the world, somewhere safe. If we get overrun, if the radiation increases, if we have no choice but to take to the sea, where do we go?”
“Britain? They’re meant to have a vaccine for this, though I’m suspicious as to whether there’s any truth in it.”
“Unless I can see it, I won’t believe it,” Jonas said. “And we didn’t see any boats coming back this way. I doubt they found refuge in Canada or Greenland. For those that still had fuel, Britain and Ireland are the only logical destinations. They’ll be as overrun as anywhere else. Besides, I doubt we’d make it that far. I don’t think we’ve got the fuel, not for all of us. I thought you might have heard about an aircraft carrier at sea, or a brigade that had disappeared somewhere in the Rockies or… something.”
They passed the fire truck. It was more battered than he remembered and somehow seemed smaller.
“No, sorry,” Tom said. “I’ll try to find out, but while a satellite image might show bomb craters, it won’t show much else.”
“And the zombies? With what Helena told us about Dr Ayers, I thought you might know something.”
“No. Addison didn’t either. Whatever Dr Ayers discovered, it wasn’t a way to stop them.”
“So they might die tomorrow, or still be here next year,” Jonas said. “Or out last us all. That’s what I thought. Hoped I was wrong. It’s this way.” He led Tom away from Main Street, onto Second, and toward the barricade built between an antique shop whose stock looked like junk, and a boarded-up frontage whose sign proclaimed art and craft supplies.
“Hear anything in the night?” Jonas asked the pair standing on an oil drum and sheet metal rampart.
“Nothing,” the young man said.
“No shooting,” the woman clarified. “No screaming.”
“Good,” Jonas said. “I saw the light in the restaurant. Jimmy and Andy are up, and cooking breakfast. You’ll be relieved in half an hour, and there’ll be a warm meal waiting for you. Good job.”
They climbed over the barricade.
“I’m impressed,” Tom said, as they walked down the road.
“We’ve a barricade on each road in the village, and another a quarter mile out,” Jonas said. “That’s six in total, with two people always on each. Twelve people who can’t go out looking for supplies. Factor in the watch that’s sleeping, and whoever’s watching the children. Subtract Jimmy and Andy, who barely have time to sleep, let alone leave the kitchen. Then there’s old Donna Lenetti whose arthritis makes holding a spoon difficult, and Adam Clitheroe who can barely see his hand in front of his face. All told, we’re down to a couple of dozen to do the lion’s share of the work. The kids eat breakfast and dinner in the house because it would take too many people to check the streets are safe in the dark. Everyone else eats in the restaurant. The duplication of labor represents only a marginal increase in wastage, but that margin might mean the difference between life and death in the days to come. We’re already eating food communally, but we’ll be out of everything but fish within a month. Our medical supplies are non-existent, and there’s no way of replenishing our ammunition.”
“I passed through the First Lady’s house in Vermont,” Tom said. “There’s ammo and fuel there, left by the Secret Service. Some food, too. Probably enough to keep everyone fed for a week.”
“Vermont? It’ll take us a day to get there and back, and what do we do when the week’s up and the food’s gone? Sure, that will help. A little here, a little there, it adds up, but it won’t be there forever. We need a more permanent solution.”
“At least you have fish,” Tom said.
“We do. That’s the saving grace. We won’t starve quickly.”
Dawn was spreading fast. The early morning light caught the razor wire strung out across the road and the grass and woodland to either side. He saw the shapes of two people at the sentry post in the middle of the road. One waved, not in greeting, but as a signal that they were human. Jonas raised his arm in return.
“Can’t farm,” he said. “Can’t spare the people to clear the ground. Not that we’ve anything to plant. There’s a few truck-gardens at the back of some houses, but so close to the sea, with so much salt-water in the air, not even the most ardent of hobbyists could get much to grow. You hear it?”
The crashing waves were barely audible. Then he realized that wasn’t what Jonas meant. There was another sound. A ripping, tearing, sighing noise coming from ahead.
“Morning,” Helena said when they were close enough for her to be heard.
“We brought coffee,” Jonas said. “How was the night?”
“Four of them,” Kaitlin said, gesturing up the road.
Tom climbed up the crude wooden steps to the left of the moveable gate. The barricade had been built in haste with unseasoned timber and metal not trimmed to size, but it was sturdy. On top were a car battery and a barrage of lights, all now switched off. Beyond was the reason for the soldier’s warmth-less welcome. Four zombies were trapped in the razor wire.
The wire stretched across the road, and for fifteen feet deep. The nearest of the creatures had managed to crawl almost along its entire length. The wire had ripped through cloth and torn into skin and muscle, lacerating flesh. A dark stain of tattered clothing and shreds of meat marked the metal over which it had crawled. It tried to raise its arm. The barbs dug in deeper. It didn’t stop. There was a visceral rip as the metal sliced into its hand between its ring and second fingers. Tom turned away, trying to block out the rasping sigh. It would have been better if the creature had screamed.
“If we’re quiet at night,” Jonas said, “they don’t move so fast. When dawn comes, when they see us, when they hear us, they rip themselves to shreds trying to get at us.”
“Let’s finish them,” Helena said. She grabbed a long-handled boathook. Tom took another.
“The wire’s attached to boards at the side,” Jonas said, pushing the gate open. “You drag that back onto the road, as close to the zombies as you can get. You kill them, pull them off the wire, move onto the next.” He pulled on a pair of thick, reinforced gloves, and walked to the side of the road, utterly ignoring the four snarling creatures.
Tom raised the boathook and waited. The task at hand was no different to what he’d done a hundred times since the outbreak. If anything, as they were trapped by the razor wire, it was far safer. It was how Jonas, Helena, and Kaitlin were treating it as a chore that got to him. He suspected that was the reason he’d been brought here this morning.
Th
e boathook had a sharpened spike protruding beyond the curved edge. When Jonas had rolled the wire back three feet, Tom was able to step in, stab down, and skewer the zombie’s brain.
“Now you have to hook it, and drag it onto the road,” Jonas said.
It was harder than he’d thought. The last remnants of the zombie’s clothing tore. Its skin ripped, and he lost his grip. He tried to think of it as meat, but it was impossible. Arms, legs, head. It had been a person. By the time he got it onto the asphalt, the next creature had crawled its way close enough that he could skewer it.
“I get your point,” Tom said, dragging it clear. “Life’s changed.”
“That’s the message I usually try to imbue,” Jonas said. “Today’s different.”
“This way of living is impossible, Tom,” Helena said. “That’s what we were talking about last night. We hoped… I don’t know what we hoped, but we each had a fantasy of things getting back to normal. Your arrival’s just made us accept that it won’t happen. Living like this is impossible, but we have to find a way to make it work.”
“We’ve a few ideas how,” Kaitlin said, “but we’re open to suggestions.”
Jonas rolled the wire back. Tom speared the boathook down, piercing the zombie’s brain. It sagged onto the wire, motionless. He then stabbed the hook through the shredded flesh. Turning, twisting, and pulling the creature free, he tried to come up with a solution.
When the fourth had been dragged onto the road and then rolled to the side, Kaitlin ran a Geiger counter over them. “Safe,” she said.
“It’s not that we expect you to have the answers,” Jonas said. “It’s that everyone has to think about the question.” There was a shot in the distance. Everyone looked in that direction.
“Come on,” Jonas said, dragging the razor wire back into place. “Better go and see who that is.”
The shot had come from the road leading to the north. The barricade had been set up on the far side of the bridge. The razor wire beyond was laid more thickly than on the road that led west. At least forty feet deep, there was a single, motionless zombie caught in the barbs. On duty were two men, one of whom Tom recognized as Gregor, the man who’d been at the bed-and-breakfast the day before.
“Who shot it?” Jonas asked.
“I did,” Gregor said.
“You got it in the head. That’s a good shot, but there was no need,” Jonas said. “It was trapped. You were safe.”
“It’s one bullet, Jonas,” Gregor said.
“And that’s a bullet we might need,” the old detective said. “Come on, Tom, grab a boathook and make yourself useful.”
“That’s a crater,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, but where is it?” Tom replied.
“Zoom out,” Jimmy said.
“Hang on,” Tom said, trying to remember what to type.
“Here,” Jimmy almost pushed him away from the keyboard. Tom watched as the young man’s fingers danced. The sat-phone and tablet had been in the fire truck, forgotten. Now they were plugged into a laptop which, in turn, was plugged into an extension-socket snaking out from the kitchen. The other end was attached to a generator. Other than the computer, it was powering a barrage of hotplates, currently being tended by Andy. A lot of the food wouldn’t keep much longer. Together with fish caught that morning, anything that could be bottled, canned, or preserved was bubbling away in the kitchen. Tom wished it was being done elsewhere. It made the weak stew they’d eaten for lunch seem even more bland.
He’d spent the morning standing guard on the road leading to the north. By way of punishment, Jonas had sentenced Gregor to a double-shift on duty. The man talked a lot but had little to say, and made no attempt to hide the fear in his voice. It was the unknown. Radiation, zombies, refugees; at any second, so many might come that the village would be swamped. In a bid to assuage that fear, when they were relieved Tom went looking for the sat-phone and tablet, and a laptop into which they could be plugged.
“Have you done this before?” he asked as Jimmy’s hands flew over the keyboard.
“Of course not, but it isn’t difficult. You need to remember that the forces acting on a satellite are different from those acting on a target on the ground. There, that’s the coast.”
“The coast of where?” Martha asked. She’d been supervising the work in the kitchen when Tom had arrived.
“That’s Florida, isn’t it?” Tom guessed.
“No, I don’t think so,” Martha said.
Jimmy tapped at the screen. The image zoomed out.
“The water’s on the right, so it’s the East Coast,” Tom said.
“But the east coast of where?” Martha asked. “I don’t think it’s America.”
“Hang on,” Jimmy said. “I think that’s the problem. Yeah, it’s the orientation. It’s not aligned north-south.” The image zoomed out again. “Got it. It’s Australia.” The image rotated, forming a more familiar shape.
There was a shared moment of understanding, replaced by gloom as they realized what it meant.
“They bombed Australia,” Martha said. “Why?”
“Mutually assured destruction,” Tom said. “Destroy everywhere. I just didn’t think anyone would truly go through with it.”
“They didn’t,” Jimmy said. “That’s only one crater. It’ll take a while, but we can find out how many hit Australia.”
“There’s no point,” Martha said. “Look for something closer. Can you get an image of us?”
“Now I know where the satellite is, sure,” Jimmy said. “But not immediately.”
“Then start with that, and work your way up and down the coast,” Martha said. “Find the places that have been destroyed, and the ones that are still intact.”
“Sure, okay,” Jimmy said.
“How long will it take?” Tom asked.
“How long’s a piece of string?” Jimmy replied. “While you’re waiting, there’s pans to scrub. There’s always pans to scrub.”
Tom went into the kitchen. Andy was standing sentry over the rows of hotplates, a wooden spoon in each hand, an intent expression on his face.
“Hi,” Tom said.
The huge man gave a vague nod of acknowledgement. Tom turned his attention to the sink. There were a lot of pans. Some were from breakfast, a few were from the previous night. The water was tepid, but the work was easy and as he set to it, he tried to remember the last time he’d cleaned a dish. He’d rinsed a mug or two during his time in hiding between the inauguration and the outbreak. Before then, he’d had a dishwasher for mugs and bowls, and restaurants and takeout menus for everything else.
“Never did much cooking,” he said.
Andy gave a grunt.
“Always meant to learn, though,” Tom said, speaking to himself. “There was a foodies’ market every second Saturday not far from my house in Maryland. I’d sometimes go there and look. I liked the incongruity of what’s exotic here is commonplace elsewhere. It’s the economics of scarcity, I suppose. Of course that now means something else entirely.”
Andy gave another grunt.
“Yeah, I suppose economics of any sort doesn’t mean much anymore.” He took a wire brush to a caked-on stain that an overnight soaking had failed to dislodge.
After a morning of thinking, of turning the problem this way and that, he saw what Helena, Kaitlin, and Jonas had. The village would survive until it didn’t. It was a trite way of putting it, but there were too many external factors to be more precise. If the radiation level rose, they would have to leave. If too many zombies came, they would have to leave. If they exhausted the supplies here, and anywhere within reach, they would have to leave. In fact, the end result of every worst-case scenario had the village being abandoned. That was the reality, but it wasn’t a depressing one. There were enough sailing boats in the bay to take people along the coast. At least a third of the village would be able to fit in Martha’s schooner. There was no destination as yet, but one could be found. Radiation, starvation,
disease, and the undead were problems they would face everywhere. And perhaps there would be no need to leave.
Higher walls could be constructed further down the road. Stockpiles could be built up. Other survivors found. In short, they had to keep on doing what they were doing now. It would work, but if it didn’t, there was the sea for escape. The village might not survive, but the community would.
Chapter 23 - Loose Ends
March 16th, Crossfields Landing, Maine
A second night in a comfortable bed was too much. It was two a.m. according to the wristwatch that, like the clothes and everything else, he’d borrowed from Jonas. Closing his eyes didn’t bring sleep, just idle trains of thought, like whether the watch had been a retirement gift to the old detective, whether that retirement had been voluntary, and why the detective had moved here. At three, he got up, having resolved to go to his cottage so that he would at least be wearing his own clothes. He walked soft-footed down to the kitchen and set a match to the already laid stove. It took him two minutes of twisting the faucet before he remembered that there was no mains supply. He filled the pot from the bucket, set it to boil, and sat down to wait.
“Heard you get up,” Jonas said, walking into the kitchen. Tom hadn’t even heard him approach.
“You move quietly,” Tom said.
“Old habits. I thought I’d check you weren’t going outside.”
“I was going to swap with Helena, let her get some sleep,” Tom admitted. “Doesn’t seem much point in both of us being awake.”
“No, you can’t do that,” Jonas said. “It’s too dangerous having people walk around at night. The noise of people calling out to identify themselves would rile the zombies. But without that greeting, the sentries might think you’re undead yourself.” He walked over to the cupboard and took out a tin. He gave it a shake. “Really need to think about rationing the coffee. Of course, rationing’s not going to magically create more of it. You given much thought to what we talked about?”
“About the future of this place? Sure,” Tom said. “Build up the walls and build them further from the village, far enough away that the zombies can’t hear. Stay inside and keep an eye on the Geiger counter. Keep the other eye on the boats and be ready to leave. I’d send someone up the coast to look for somewhere to which you can retreat.”